The effect of annealing on starch gelatinization behaviour has earlier been described in the literature. The starch: water ratio in these studies have been either very low or very high. In this work the gelatinization behaviour has been studied both with time and temperature at an intermediate starch/water ratio (1:1) by differential scanning calorimetry. Starches from maize, waxy‐maize, wheat and potato have been compared. This investigation shows that annealing causes an increase of To and Tm, a narrowing of the gelatinization temperature interval, and a change of the shape of the endotherm can also be observed. The annealing time has to be more than 6 h to induce these changes.