Oats

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?PABYN 18 November 2014 Cavena Nuda,Cavena oat groats.
While trying to find raw oat grains, some information was found about the various oats sold for human consumption.There is only one type oat available in raw form and this is a relatively recently developed grain.I bought some today from a bulk barn store, for use in making tortillas and gruel or porridge.
A new type of oat kernel or groat.
Cavena Nuda is a brand new form of oats that’s hull-less, gluten free, high in protein & iron & cooks up just like brown rice. Now you can get all the health benefits of oats in a grain that you can use as you would rice in recipes. It was developed by Agriculture Canada, and for now it’s only available in Canada. It was developed without a hull (NAKED), so the oats don’t have to be shipped off somewhere to remove the hull–a necessary process to prevent spoilage & rancidity. It is also 25% higher in protein than regular oats-twice the iron, & 20% more fiber.

This is the treatment for typical oats.Hulls are removed from oats, leaving an oat groat. Oat groats are high in fat, so once the hull is removed, an oat groat will go rancid within a few days. Therefore, all oat groats for human consumption are hulled, then “stabilized” (heated to 200 degrees for an hour or more to stabilize enzyme action). As a result oat groats won’t sprout and aren’t raw. Steel cut oats and Scottish oats are cut after the heating process. To produce rolled oats, stabilized oats are steamed then rolled. A number of oat producers were contacted in Canada and the US, and they confirmed the above.

Groats (or in some cases, “berries”), are the hulled kernels of various cereal grains such as oat, wheat, and rye. Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain as well as the endosperm.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?YMUWK More Internet information

I have struck deal with a farmer friend and have gotten wheat in 5 gal buckets from the combine at avoided cost.  Hand grind it myself and make whole-wheat bread. Of course I share the bread with the farmer, which has definitely developed our friendship. A few years after this arrangement started he told me he had a few acres in oats and asked if I would be interested in some out of the combine oats.  Of course I said yes.  The hull on oats does not come off in the combine like for wheat.  This has been quite an odyssey. I deeply believe that back in the era of draft animals, pre gas engines, farmers grew more than half of their fields in oats to feed the draft animals.  I can't believe that they did not have a manual means to remove the hull for family consumption?  But all my queries have come up empty.  Anyone able to share a bit of history on how the resourceful farmer's wife would remove the hull off of fresh oats?  The current process uses a hypersonic impacting technique.  Doesn't should like a good process for someone that wants to process 5 to 20# of oats for oatmeal?

I appreciate any info you might share.

Jim Mc  

Hi James, welcome to Permies!  I'm interested in the answer to your question as well.  

I gave up on dehulling oats and just grow naked "hulless" oats.  I cut them off at the base of the stalk, take the bunch and slap it against the inside of a big rubbermaid tote and the oats fall off.  To get better slappage I rigged up a cookie drying rack on the side of the tote to slap the oats against.  I have yet to cook with them but the chickens love them and they had good germination this year.  I'm growing 10x the amount this year.

As I stated in the first post.  I am not a true back to basics.  I don't have enough ground to do more than just have a strong vegetable garden, but the idea of being able to process wheat if I could get my hands on it and the fact that wheat can be stored almost indefinitely I wanted to learn to make whole wheat bread by hand.  Then the oats came into the picture.  Every method I could come up with using my existing manual flour mill either didn't separate the groat and hull or the hull had the same density as the pulverized groat and willowing was meaningless.  I tried a screen sifter because the hulls were still substantial larger than the ground groat but the hulls were mostly in the shape of needles and instantly plugged the screen while still allowing some through???  A few other genius ideas but usually ended up with the separation being the killing process???  Thanks for your response.  

I doubt that the farmer would entertain the idea of using hull-less oat seed next time because his reason for planting oats was he missed the planting window for one of his other crops and this was a toss up as to if he would combine it or plow it under to improve the ground based on the price of oats at harvest.  It was a very close call but his wife ended up with a large reserve of chicken feed, because the market for oats was so low it couldn't pay for the fuel for the combine.

If I may resurrect this old post......  i still have questions...   and my first question regarding whole oats with the hulls on them.....  What about the idea of throwing the entire oat grain with the hull attached into
the grinder and you get ground up oats... either fine or course depending on the grinder setting.  Is the ground hull material nutritious in any way or would it simply add fiber ?    Adding fiber might not be so bad
if the taste and texture were still appealing enough to eat when cooked as oatmeal or porridge ? ? ?

Old post but maybe the only one an "oat" search throws up. Which is odd.

I've been thinking about growing oats here for sometime, ever since I read it will germinate on ice even. Can a no knowledge plantee get it wrong?


From another google search  https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/guide-growing-oats

"When oats were first harvested for human consumption, they were husked in stone mills, winnowed to remove hulls and debris, and ground to coarse flour, which took three or four hours of boiling for the lumpy, pasty oatmeal to be eaten"

I wonder if using a home grinding mill with the stones as far apart as they can go approximate to de-hulling or just create a mess?

I have a bit of bare soil now, I have a plow, should I then rotovate then broadcast? But where the heck do I get even some oats to plant at a domestic scale??? (UK)

If I plant rolled oats will I get flat plants? ;)

jason holdstock wrote:

I have a bit of bare soil now, I have a plow, should I then rotovate then broadcast? But where the heck do I get even some oats to plant at a domestic scale??? (UK)

If I plant rolled oats will I get flat plants? ;)

Look for somewhere that sells chicken and horse feed they will have 10-25kg sacks of oats, I think you will get very flat plants, so flat you'll never see them.

Thank you, I thought that would have been processed to some extent as the ones I've found for sprouting are?
But worth a try :)

jason holdstock wrote:Thank you, I thought that would have been processed to some extent as the ones I've found for sprouting are?
But worth a try :)

Not the ones here anyway they are straight out of the sorting machine hulls and all.

Several months ago I purchased a fifty pound bag of race horse oats from the feed store.   I took five pounds and gave the 45 pounds to a friend who owns a horse.  What I did was take one cup of these race horse oats at a time and put into a blender dry as they come out of the bag and processed until abou tthe same texture as corn grits.    I then experimented with different amounts of water and cooking time but basically cooked them like regular grits.  The result was something that tasted just like oatmeal made with rolled oats.  The texture was a little different but that can change with amount of time cooked and how finely ground.   The unexcpected "benefit"   is that the oatmeal had more of an effect similar to fiber one cereal or a handful of plums  on your pooping ability.    Now to the finer point.   When I bought the oats from the feed store the difference between regular horse oats and race horse oats was 2 dollars per fifty pounds and the guy said race horse oats did not have briars and sticks mixed in.
I dont have any oats left so I do not know if they would sprout or not  but they definitely have the full natural hull on the oats that the horses eat.
They look much like wheat berries before wheat is ground.     I dont think I ever boiled any of the oats witout grinding them first but I will next time.

jason holdstock wrote:But where the heck do I get even some oats to plant at a domestic scale??? (UK)

I've just got some oats from Brown Envelope Seeds. They have a few different varieties. I think if you are growing on a bogger scale it is possible to get some Hebridean heritage varieties, which tend to be shorter to withstand the weather better I think.

Nancy Reading wrote:I think if you are growing on a bogger scale it is possible to get some Hebridean heritage varieties, which tend to be shorter to withstand the weather better I think.

Definitely boggy :)

I thought oats were originally rolled to separate the hull or husk from the grain, allowing winnowing after. Can anyone confirm this?

James McDonald wrote:I can't believe that they did not have a manual means to remove the hull for family consumption?  But all my queries have come up empty.  Anyone able to share a bit of history on how the resourceful farmer's wife would remove the hull off of fresh oats?

James - this might help:
Welsh heritage oats - their recovery, small-scale processing, recipes
I've found a couple of recent websites covering the recovery of black Welsh oats, ceirch du.
An article on oats' recovery, there are 108 mostly still in the genebank, presumed many others lost:
https://www.gaiafoundation.org/our-rare-welsh-oats-the-story-of-rejuvenating-regional-heritage-grain-in-wales/
The next focuses on black oats, ceirch du. Having grown it, they were faced with dehulling it. Most oats nowadays are processed in huge factories, they needed machinery to deal with a few sacks. Scroll down through https://www.seedsovereignty.info/welsh-oats-back-in-black/ to 'Oat Quest - read more' for details of that machinery, and recipes used in the celebration.

That’s some pretty tough fiber on oats.  However, when I’ve been able to buy good quality organic, already hulled oats, we use them for flour.  I throw in my electric grinder and mix into wheat and corn meal and make a delicious quick bread baked in a Dutch oven over hot coals.  35 minutes, and make sure the fire is not too hot, or it will scorch.  A few coals on top too.  I add one egg, a little buttermilk or yogurt, flax seed, sunflower or pumpkin seed, baking soda, some lard or melted butter and salt.  I also used entirely oat flour once when I was out of other flour, to make a spice cake.  Had guests, it was someone’s birthday cake and they could not believe it was whole grain, much less oats.  It was incredible!

Oats are so easy to grow and if you have good soil and good weather, 45 days to maturity.  I dropped one seed in my herb garden where my husband had put down major and trace minerals, humate and worm castings.  It made about 15 tillers and was loaded.  Wish I had made pics, it was 3 feet high.  Never saw oats get so huge and produce so much.  That’s what perfect growing conditions can do.