Evaluation of roller milling potential of amaranth grains

- Amaranth grains were evaluated for the roller milling process.
- Conditioning moisture influenced the milled products yield and composition.
- Distributions of nutrients shown wide variation among the milled products.
- Protein, minerals, fat and dietary fibers are concentrated in seed coat fraction.
- Milled products showed unique nutritive composition and functional properties.

In the present study roller milling potential of amaranth grains was evaluated. The conditioning moisture influenced the millability of the amaranth grain. The results showed that the coarse seed coat (CSC) fraction increased from 12.91 to 38.33% with increase in conditioning moisture of the grains from 11 to 18.5%. The nutrients were more concentrated in the CSC fraction, while flour (FL) fraction showed low protein, ash, fat and dietary fiber contents. As the grain moisture content was increased from 11.0 to 15.5%, the yield of flour decreased with improvement in the brightness values. CSC showed higher values for redness and yellowness and lower values for brightness compared to other milled fractions. CSC had the highest water and oil holding capacities with the values of 410 g/100 g and 215 g/100 g respectively. The swelling power was also higher for CSC and fine seed coat (FSC) fractions. Among milled fractions, highest pasting temperature of 75.9 °C and peak viscosity of 212 BU was recorded for CSC and FL fractions respectively. These results showed that the roller mill can be used for milling amaranth grains to produce fractions rich in nutrients with unique functional properties.