Physicochemical and microstructural characterisation of green gram and foxtail millet starch gels.

The starch and starch gels from green gram (GG) and foxtail millet (FM) were characterised for their physicochemical, thermal and microstructural characteristics; the features of shape and size were determined by image analysis. Both GG and FM formed well-set gels at 9% concentration of starch. The fracture strain of the gels was between 78 and 80% indicating non-brittle gels. The peak temperatures of the native flour of GG (74.9 °C) and FM (75.7 °C) were significantly higher than their corresponding starch samples (72.2 and 75.0 °C). The conclusion temperatures of the FM native flour (81.2 °C) and starch (79.4 °C) samples were higher than the native GG flour (79.9 °C) and GG starch (77.1 °C) samples. Starches were nearly spherical as the roundness values were between 0.88 and 0.95. Green gram starch was pentagonal having an average diameter of 3.9-9.2 µm while foxtail millet starch was spherical with a diameter of 4.9-10.1 µm. The freeze-dried GG and FM starch gels showed cellular structure containing organised hexagonal pores, bound by thin pore walls; the GG starch gels deviated from the circular shape as they had the highest elongation value of 4.21. The thicker pore walls were observed for GG starch gels (0.88 μm) compared to that of FM samples (0.57 μm). The higher pore wall thickness in the case of GG gel showed the formation of junction zones.