I've now made my multi-grain oatmeal sandwich bread many times and it works like a charm every single time. Always light and very tasty. Several others have reported making it with similar results. Have you tried that one?

I take the success of that bread as evidence that your problem is not the oatmeal. If your loaves rose just fine, but still you got a brick, it must have collapsed. If it did, that is most likely due to over proofing, possibly combined with not enough development in the dough (to hold shape).

It is important to note that lack of oven spring does not necessarily imply a brick. If the proof went fine and the dough rose properly, there may just have been little left to produce additional lift in the oven. If there was not enough rise during the bulk and proof stages, and you had no oven spring, you will definitely have a brick. Most of the time when I make the bread, I proof it to close to 100% and thus I do not get any noticeable oven spring.

--dolf

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures