The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Oats Oats Oats.

RiverWalker's picture
RiverWalker

Oats Oats Oats.

So I did an experiment, derived from the multigrain extroardinare recipe in BBA(sortof)


all together the ingredients were approximately:

~3C Whole Wheat Flour(KAF) (might have been a little more than that)
1/2C "Better for Bread Flour"
~1/2C Rolled oats ground to flour-ish consistency

~1 1/2C Water (I really need to work on being more precise)
1 egg
1/4C Honey
~3T Butter

~2 1/4t Active Dry Yeast
~1 1/2t Salt
4t VWG

3T Rolled Oats
3T Cornmeal
2T Wheat Bran

technique wise I had the last 3, and some water soak overnight in one bowl, and the rest of the water, bread flour, half the ground oats, and about a cup of the WW flour, with a little bit of yeast, set at room temp overnight. then pretty much mixed it all together in the morning.

cooked at 375 for about 25 minutes I think it was, might have been more like 30.

it was pretty wet and a little stickier than most of the bread doughs I've done, but it behaved better than I expected for shaping and getting it in the pan. it had a nice balance for my sense of it, of being pliable and sticking to itself eagerly, but not oozing into a puddle.

once cooked it had a really nice flavor and texture. it rose very eagerly, but might have overdone it on the yeast... the top was almost black by time the rest seemed done, but not inedibly burnt, nor was it DEEPLY burnt, mostly just asthetically overly dark, that means it needs lower temperature, right? or was this a result of the grains interactions and enzymes and whatnot.

so the bottom line I am wondering about, is how much difference does the steaming that the oats go through to be rolled, effect them chemically? could you take rolled oats, toss them in a coffee grinder til they look like flour(and very fluffy flour, by the way) and use them as oat flour? or would they behave more like a cooked-grain additive? would grinding steel cut oats act differently(chemically and such) or are those steamed too?

 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

So it doesn't really matter if they're steamed first or not during the rolling process.  A coffee grinder works great!  I've ground them into flour staying under my self set limits for recipes not using vital wheat gluten: under 30% max of non-gluten flours per loaf.  Think of them as non-gluten, they won't be helping much but do add flavor and softness to the crumb due to their gelling ability when heated. 

Oat flour and rolled oats absorb lots of water.  Rolled oats are also rather decorative and can be used to line pans and coat loaves, unlike the flour, they can be used like chopped nuts and in greater quantities, keeping in mind their absorbing abilities.  Sometimes I soak them in water for 30 min. (can also be lightly salted or sweetened) and drain so they don't dry out my dough.  Sometimes I use them to soak up extra moisture in dough, don't forget to adjust the salt in the recipe  (calculate like flour: 1.6 -2% of weight.)

Mini