I mentioned the other day that I had ordered a flaker, which really just rolls oat groats and makes them into old fashioned type oatmeal. I’m not saying rolling your own oat groats is any better than buying storebought old fashioned oats. One of the main reasons I prefer to do it the way I do it is like I mentioned in the previous blog post about grain – I like to keep grain on hand and it will last for years and years as whole grain but once it’s flaked or rolled or ground, all bets are off. It may last a year or a little more but as whole grain, it should last for 20 or 30 years so that’s why oat groats work better for me.
The flaker arrived . . I think it was Tuesday. Yesterday Vince attached it to the mill for me and today I ground oats for another batch of granola.
I feel fairly confident that very few of you are going to roll oat groats to make your own oatmeal but some of you may find this interesting. In that last video I mentioned soaking or hydrating the oats before rolling and there were some questions about why do it that way. As I was grinding oats for the granola, I decided to show the difference in hydrated vs. non-hydrated oats.
The oats on the left were rolled dry and the oats on the right were rolled hydrated.
Trying to get a better picture, I dumped some of them in a skillet. Again, left is dry and right were rehydrated.
Then I dumped them all into the bowl – dry on the left, hydrated on the right.
Can you see the difference? The dry ones want to crack more than roll and have a bit of powder, which is oat flour. The hydrated ones roll out perfectly with very little cracking.
To hydrate, I put however many I’ll need into a big bowl with a lid and add a bit of water. The water is probably about 2 T. for 3 cups of oat groats. I shake it really hard for a minute or so, holding the lid on tightly as I’m shaking the bowl. I remove the lid and if it looks like they’re all just barely damp, that’s good. If I see lots of dry groats, I add another teaspoon of water and shake again. Then I leave the lid on them and let them sit overnight. By the next day, they should be nice and hydrated and will be easy to run through the flaker. Just make sure they don’t look “wet”. Not sure if it would affect the machine or not.
The granola was stirred up and baked.
Now it needs to cool and go into two quart jars and we’ll have it for breakfast til it runs out and then I’ll make more. We will add fruit, either dried or fresh, to our bowls as we eat the granola.
vivoaks says
I never knew there was such a thing as a “flaker”, so this has been very interesting to see and hear about. I love oatmeal – as cereal, granola, cookies…you name it. I’m not sure it would be worth my while, though, to get something like this for myself. I probably buy 2 boxes of oatmeal a year – one rolled oats and one quick oats. While I like it, I really don’t eat that much of it. I have two cookbooks that are no longer in print that are for making mixes (recipes included), which are then used to make lots of dishes (also recipes included). There’s everything from main meat dishes to roll mix, cookie mix, probably 30-40 mixes total. One of the recipes is for homemade granola, which I’ve made in the past, and I enjoy. All this talk of granola is making me consider making some again. You’re either a good or a bad influence…whichever way you want to look at it! 🙂 🙂
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I try not to be a bad influence but I’m sure that some might consider me to be more bad than good. I try to share the things we do that are a little different from the norm but everyone has to make their own decisions. I’m not twisting any arms.
Susan says
Good influence – healthier lifestyle – fewer additives we don’t want. All good things. =) I never knew there was a flaker, either, but then I didn’t know you could still buy electric skillets, because I haven’t seen one in years. There they are, right on Amazon! There was a time I couldn’t cook a meal without one, before crock pots and slow cookers … though come to think of it, Paul and I got both an electric skillet and a slow cooker for wedding presents in the mid-70s. =)
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Yes! I remember my Harvest Gold electric skillet. There were only a couple of meals I knew how to cook. One of them was round steak with a can of soup – I think it was Golden Mushroom soup . . maybe. It made a decent gravy . . was probably tough as nails but we survived.