The rheological behavior of native and high-pressure homogenized waxy maize starch pastes

Both steady and large amplitude dynamic rheological testes were carried out in hydrothermally gelatinized waxy maize starch (WMS) pastes. The concentration of WMS was maintained at 6.0% (w/w) throughout these tests. The WMS pastes exhibited shear thickening behavior during the first up curve in steady shear tests. The shear thickening behavior was found to be irreversible and could not be retained after equilibrating the pastes beyond 6 h. The change in the shape of Lissajous curves was insignificant during strain sweeps at higher angular frequencies. This arose because of slow response of WMS pastes to oscillatory strain within a period of oscillatory shear, which can be attributed to the domination of rheological properties by amylopectin in continuous phase. High-pressure homogenization (HPH) was found to significantly reduce the apparent viscosity of the WMS pastes. After HPH, the WMS pastes behaved like typical Newtonian fluids.