steel cut oats/water question
I've been using breadtopia's no knead yeast recipe with good success. I use 143g whole wheat bread flour, 300g white bread flour, and 343g water. Result is a nice crumb with a gorgeous crust. Breadtopia has a recipe for a variation: 86g whole wheat bread flour, 86g steel cut oats, 286g white bread flour, and 343g water. 1/4 tsp yeast in both recipes. I made the oats one yesterday for the first time. When I mixed the dough, it was immediately apparent how much wetter it was than the regular recipe. I figured that the oats would absorb some of that water, and they did. After 18 hours, when I stretched and folded the dough, it felt much more dense and heavy, not fluffy like the original recipe dough, and barely manageable because of the high water content. I got concerned, but kept going. It rose again, not as much as the first, though definitely denser than with the regular recipe.
My question: I'd like to combine the original with the oats recipe to get to some compromise. I like the oats in there, but I'd like it less dense. I was wondering whether presoaking the oats might help and then just add them to the original recipe, just like one would add nuts and seeds. But I imagine there could be a problem with the water contained in the oats, that one would have to adjust for that? Should I subtract the water amount that the oats absorbed from the overall water amount? Any thoughts?