To prepare thin‐boiling and nongelling adhesives, granular wheat and corn starches were thinned by treatment with aqueous hydrochloric acid or sodium hypochlorite and then hydroxypropylated with propylene oxide. Chlorine oxidation gave more rapid chain cleavage and whiter products with better freeze‐storage stability than acid‐treatment. Under the same depolymerization conditions, wheat starch was converted to a low viscosity granular starch more rapidly than corn starch. The best adhesive, judged by bonding strength, viscosity stability, and freeze‐thaw stability, resulted from wheat or corn starch oxidized with 0.82% Cl at pH 8.0 for 1 h followed by hydroxypropylation to molar substitution (M.S.) ∼ 0.07.