Characteristics of Spontaneously Fermented Corn

This study was aimed to examine the effect of fermentation on nutritional content, thermal properties, and pasting characteristic of corn powder. The corn powder variants used in this study was the Bisi-2 variant obtained from Jeneponto regency, South Sulawesi province, whereas the Pop variant were obtained from supermarket. The procedures consisted of three steps. The first step was corn polishing in which the corn seeds that had been cleaned from dirts and flawed seeds were immersed for one hour, and then were polished using polisher machine of PPK N 70 type. The polished corns were then cleaned from corns peel and ready to be processed to the next step. The second step was the corn flour preparation and the polished corns were immersed for 12 hours followed by milling (disc mill type 9FZ-33), drying, and meshing (mesh 60). The third step was corn fermentation the corn flours were mixed with water (21), fermented for 2 days, dried, milled (disc mill type 9FZ-23), and meshed (60 mesh). Study results indicated that fermentation reduced the carbohydrate, amylose, and starch content of corn flour while increased the protein and water content. Fermentation reduced the enthalpy value, making the starch structure less harder, and thus, reduced the crystalline characteristic of the two corn variants studied presumably by bacterial activities during fermentation which break the starch carbon bonds into smaller bonds. Fermentation could reduce the peak viscosity, breakdown value, final viscosity, and trough viscosity value of the flour.