# Technological Properties of Tritordeum Starch
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Chemical Composition
Starch granules are mostly composed of two types of alpha-glucan, amylose (AM) and amylopectin (AP), which represent approximately 98-99% of their dry weight. The ratio of these two polysaccharides varies according to the botanical origin of the starch, and it influences starch properties. The AM/AP ratio influences crystallinity, swelling, gelatinization temperature, and the pasting/gelling behavior of starches. Basically, AM as an essentially linear polymer with a lower molecular mass is leached out of swelling starch granules when heated in water, and is responsible for gelling properties and short-term retrogradation. On the other hand, AP is a highly branched polymer responsible for water binding, the creation of starch paste, and long-term retrogradation [6; 7; 8; 14]. The apparent amylose (AAM) content in the investigated material was within the broad range, with the lowest value of 18.72% observed for Tf5. The other starch with the closest AAM content was BaS (Table 1), slightly over 1% more. For the remaining investigated starches, this value was over 20%. Data from the literature related to amylose content are given in a broad range--17.6-31.00% for barley, 18.2-34.7% for wheat [6; 17; 18; 19; 22], and 3.8-46.6% for buckwheat [19; 21]--but usually, values of about 20% are observed. The mineral compound (ash) content in the investigated cereal starches was within a relatively narrow range (Table 1). The observed values are within the range of data for barley (0.09-0.40%) [16; 21], wheat (0.13%) [20], and buckwheat (0.1-1.47%) [20; 21] starches. For tritordeum starch, the mineral compound content was higher than for wheat starches, but slightly lower than for barley starches. Phosphorus is a compound occurring at very low concentrations, but it plays an important role in starch functional properties. Phosphorus in starch can be found as inorganic phosphate, phosphate monoester, and phospholipids. When present in the form of phosphate monoester, it increases paste clarity and viscosity, for example, in potato starch, whereas phospholipids have the opposite effect on starch, making starch paste opaque and decreasing its viscosity. In cereal starches, it is mainly present in the form of phospholipids [7; 23]. Its content was within the range of 0.025% (barley) to 0.66% (buckwheat) in starch (Table 1), and it was positively correlated with ash content (\(p>0.001\)). Data from the literature related to phosphorus content in barley gave a rather broad range from 0.004 to 0.075% [17; 18]; for wheat starch, it was from 0.040 to 0.053% [24; 25], whereas for buckwheat starch, this amount is rather negligible at 0-95 ppm (0.0095%) [21]. As observed, the phosphorus content analyzed in this research was consistent with the data in the literature, and its level in tritrodeum starch was essentially the same as in buckwheat starch, whereas barley starch was characterized by the lowest amount of this compound. Among the investigated starches, tritrodeum was characterized by the highest share of minor non-carbohydrate material (protein, lipids, phosphorus, and mineral compounds). Such non-starch material can create problems in starch processing; for example, during glucose syrup production, more extensive purification will be required.