But although the ingredients are simple, there are a few things that can make the difference between an easy, satisfying ferment and a jar that doesn’t quite behave as you expected.

I’ve made a lot of sauerkraut over the years, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. These nine tips are the things I’ve learned that make the biggest difference in my own kitchen—from choosing the cabbage and getting enough brine to keeping your ferment safely tucked underneath the liquid.

If you’re new to making sauerkraut, these are the things I wish I’d known when I started.

Ready to make sauerkraut?

If you’re not made sauerkraut before, you don’t need to master all nine of these tips before you begin. The best way to learn is to make a batch yourself.

I have a Super Simple Sauerkraut recipe that takes you through the whole process, from preparing the cabbage to packing it into your jar and leaving it to ferment.

It’s the straightforward, no-fuss method I recommend if you’re looking for an easy way to get started. Once you’ve made a few batches, these tips will help you refine your technique and troubleshoot anything that doesn’t go quite as expected.

1. Use a sharp knife

I bought myself a proper sharp knife earlier this year.

How on earth had I been chopping up 2kg (4lbs) of cabbage for sauerkraut before having a sharp knife?

It has made a huge difference to those mammoth cabbage-dicing sessions. When you’re preparing a large quantity of cabbage, a good, sharp knife makes the job considerably easier.

If you struggle with chopping cabbage for a long time, you can also use my simpler sauerkraut method here, which involves much less chopping.

2. Start with fresh cabbage

For a long time I couldn’t understand why, after adding salt to my cabbage and squeezing it, I sometimes had so little liquid. There simply wasn’t enough brine to properly cover the cabbage.

I eventually learned that the freshness of the cabbage makes a big difference.

Cabbages that have been sitting in cold storage for months before we buy them can contain considerably less available liquid than really fresh cabbage. Fresh cabbage releases its juices much more readily when salted and squeezed.

So, work hard to find fresh cabbage – or grow your own. It can make creating enough brine for your ferment much easier.

3. Use the right amount of salt

Getting the salt right is important when making sauerkraut.

I weigh the cabbage I’m using in grams and then multiply that weight by 1.375%. The resulting figure is the amount of salt, in grams, that I mix into the cabbage.

For example, if I have 1,000g of cabbage, I use 13.75g of salt.

If I later need to make additional brine to top up the liquid in my fermentation, I mix 5g of salt with every cup of water.

4. Give the cabbage time

Most sauerkraut methods recommend squeezing the cabbage soon after the salt has been mixed through it.

I’ve found it easier to let the salted cabbage rest before squeezing or pounding it.

After chopping my cabbage and mixing in the salt, I leave the bowl in the fridge for 24 hours.

When I come back to it, the cabbage has had plenty of time to release its juices, making the next stage much easier.

5. Don’t overfill your jars

Sauerkraut is alive while it ferments. As fermentation gets going, gases are released and the contents of the jar can rise.

If you overfill your jars, this can mean cabbage and brine bubbling over the top—particularly if you’re not using an airlock.

Leaving some space at the top of the jar helps lessen the impact.

This is the most cabbage I will put into a 1 litre/quart jar:

It’s tempting to squeeze every last bit into a jar, especially when you’ve spent time preparing a big batch of cabbage, but giving your ferment a little room can save a lot of mess.

6. Make sure you have enough liquid

One of the most important things when making sauerkraut is making sure the cabbage is covered by liquid.

If your salted cabbage doesn’t produce enough liquid to cover it, you may need to add some brine.

Sauerkraut is an anaerobic fermentation. In other words, it does not need or want access to oxygen. Keeping the cabbage beneath the liquid helps create the conditions the fermentation needs.

If your cabbage isn’t covered by enough liquid, mix up a brine using the salt ratio from tip 3 and use it to make up the difference.

7. Keep the cabbage underneath the brine

Having enough liquid isn’t enough on its own—you also need to make sure the cabbage stays underneath it throughout fermentation.

I do this by firstly cutting a circle of cabbage to use as a “cap”:

I then weight the cabbage and the cap down with “pickle pebbles”, little circular glass weights:

The cap helps keep smaller pieces of cabbage together, while the weights hold everything underneath the brine.

8. Put something underneath your fermenting jars

If you’re not using a fermentation lock, brine will likely escape from your jars as the sauerkraut ferments.

And if you don’t put the jars onto something, that brine will go straight onto your work surface.

Sometimes I use plates for this, but more recently, to save space in my tiny kitchen, I’ve been using a simple plastic tray:

It’s a very small thing, but it makes fermenting much less messy. If a little brine escapes, it’s caught by the tray rather than running across the kitchen worktop.

9. Label your ferments

I spent far too long not doing this.

I’d start a ferment and then, a few days -or sometimes weeks – later, find myself wondering when exactly I’d made it.

Now I use masking tape and a Sharpie to label all my ferments with, at the very least, the date.

It takes seconds and makes such a difference. Once you have several jars of vegetables fermenting at different stages, you’ll be very glad you know when each one was started.

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of cabbage is best for making sauerkraut?

Fresh cabbage is the most important thing to look for. Cabbage that has been stored for a long time can be drier and may not release enough liquid when salted.

If you can find freshly harvested cabbage, or grow your own, that’s ideal.

As to variety, hard light green or deep red cabbages – the weighty ones with closely packed leaves – produce the best results.

Can I make sauerkraut without special equipment?

Yes. You don’t need complicated equipment to make sauerkraut. A jar, a sharp knife and something to use as a weight are enough to get started.

Where should I keep my sauerkraut while it ferments?

Keep your sauerkraut at room temperature somewhere where you can easily keep an eye on it.

I like to keep my jars somewhere accessible in the kitchen. That way I can see what’s happening, check that the vegetables remain underneath the brine and deal with any liquid that escapes.

How long does sauerkraut take to ferment?

The length of fermentation depends on the conditions and on how you like your sauerkraut. Taste is a useful guide: as fermentation progresses, the flavour becomes increasingly sour.

If you’re new to fermentation, it’s worth keeping an eye on your jar and tasting it as it develops so you can discover what stage you enjoy most.

In my kitchen, which ranges between 17C and 25C (62-77F), I usually leave my kraut about two weeks before transferring it to the fridge.

Why is my sauerkraut bubbling?

Bubbling is a normal sign that fermentation is taking place. As the microorganisms ferment the cabbage, gases are produced.

This is also why sauerkraut can rise up in the jar and why brine may escape during fermentation. Leaving some space at the top of the jar and putting your jars on a tray makes this much easier to manage.

When is my sauerkraut ready to eat?

Your sauerkraut is ready when it tastes good to you.

As it ferments, the cabbage develops a more pronounced sour flavour. You can taste it as it progresses and decide when you like the balance of flavour and texture.

Once you’ve found the point you enjoy, you’ll have a much better idea of how long to ferment your next batch.

How can I store my sauerkraut when it’s ‘done’?

When the sauerkraut is fermented to your liking, transfer it to a refrigerator. Fridge temperatures stall the fermentation, and the kraut will keep for many many months this way.

It is then ready for you whenever you want it!

In what ways can I eat my sauerkraut?

Here are my five favourite ways to eat sauerkraut:

1. Sprinkled on top of fried or poached eggs
2. Mixed into a salad
3. In a sandwich
4. Topping a stew just before serving
5. With sausages!

You might also like:

Super Simple Sauerkraut – You don’t need to stand there chopping and squeezing all day. Follow my method and use your food processor

Fermenting Vegetables: Your Questions Answered – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode with tonnes of information about sauerkraut and other veg ferments

7 Ways to Stay on Track with your Gut Healing – gut healing is not easy. This mini pep talk will help you get some more motivation and perspective.

The Ancestral Food Fridge

I’ve been eating ancestrally for the past 15 years and the contents of my fridge reflect that. Ancestral eating is a way of life, rather than a strict set of rules, but there are certain things that you’ll often find in both mine, and other ancestral eaters’ fridges. This list in a great way to understand what the ancestral diet is, so let’s break them down:

Ferments

Fermentation is a backbone of the ancestral diet and you’ll always find ferments in an ancestral fridge.

Mine has vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, dairy ferments like milk kefir and yogurt and fermented condiments including garlic and miso. Along with this, my fridge door houses drinks (made fizzy with the help of natural probiotics) like water kefir and, my family’s favourite, boza.

The actual fermentation of all of these happens on my worktop. Once the food or drink has reached the flavour and acidity I’m after, it goes into the fridge, where the cold slows the fermentation right down. That means it’s ready to enjoy over the coming weeks without changing too quickly.

My family don’t eat huge quantities. Instead, a spoonful of fermented vegetables alongside a meal, a glass of water kefir or a little boza as a nourishing snack brings variety, depth of flavour and living cultures into everyday eating.

If you’re new to fermentation, water kefir is one of the easiest places to start. It’s a naturally fermented, lightly sparkling drink that’s simple to make at home. If you’d like to explore one of the world’s oldest fermented grain drinks instead, have a read of What is Boza?. If you’d prefer to have a go at vegetable fermentation, check out my Super-Simple Sauerkraut.

In addition to these edible ferments, I also store my sourdough starters in the fridge in between bakes – this makes them much easier to manage. I detail my process in my pay-what-you-can mini-course Make & Maintain a Rye Sourdough Starter

Raw Dairy

There is always some dairy in my fridge and, if I can source it, I choose raw milk products.

Most of the dairy sold today is pasteurised, a process born of the industrialisation. Raw dairy, by contrast, feels like a living food.

If raw milk isn’t available where you live, check for cheese instead, some are made with raw milk. You can also use traditional milk fermentation practises to make yogurt or kefir which can add multiple benefits to carefully selected pasteurised milk.

In addition to fermented dairy I also almost always have butter for spreading and cooking and very regularly cream too, which is served with fruit and goes into dishes such as stews and risottos.

Meat and Offal

Rather than choosing only the standard selections, popular in supermarkets, the ancestral diet uses a variety of meat, including lesser-known cuts and offal. These bring variety in terms of flavour and nutrients as well as often being the economical choice.

In my fridge, you’ll often find joints that require long, slow cooking, bones waiting to be made into stock, liver which will become pate, along with favourites such as sausages from my local farmer.

There’s also usually a lot of previously cooked leftover meat – they are especially valuable because they can make lunches or snacks quick and effortless.

Here’s my popular recipe for slow-cooked beef heart. The leftovers can be made into multiple meals. I talk about how I do this in practise in this podcast episode

Saturated Fat

Butter, tallow (from cows) and lard (from pigs) are always in my fridge, each kept in its own container and ready for cooking.

These traditional fats have being used to cook family meals for generations. I use them to roast vegetables, to fry eggs, in sheet pan dishes, to start soups and risottos, in stews, and also to fry pancakes. I also spread butter or lard on bread.

Unlike the seed oils that have become common in modern kitchens, these are the fats my ancestors would have recognised. Having them ready makes it easy to cook almost every meal with traditional fats rather than reaching for industrially processed alternatives.

I render lard and tallow myself at home from locally produced fat that I buy directly from my farmer. Here’s an introduction into rendering in your own kitchen.

Seasonal Vegetables

The contents of my vegetable drawer change with the seasons. For me, in the northern hemisphere, in winter it’s likely to be cabbages, root vegetables, leeks and hardy greens. Spring brings asparagus and fresh herbs, summer means tomatoes, courgettes and cucumbers, while autumn sees mushrooms and the last of the beans.

In an ideal world I’d grow all of these myself, but not all of us have the space, time or resources to do that. The next best thing is to buy locally whenever possible. Seasonal vegetables that haven’t travelled far are often fresher, taste better and support local growers too.

Condiments and Flavour-Bringers

Alongside mustard, horseradish and mayonnaise (often homemade) you’ll often find preserved lemons, fermented garlic, miso, chutneys, Worcestershire sauce and fish sauce in a fridge of someone who follows an ancestral diet.

These aren’t there because ancestral foodies cook elaborate meals. They’re there because a spoonful of something savoury, tangy or deeply fermented can transform a simple plate of meat and vegetables or a bowl of soup into something far more interesting. I regularly use miso in dishes such as this Breakfast Bone Broth Bowl.

Lots of Leftovers

Perhaps the biggest difference between the fridge of a family that eats an ancestral food diet and the average modern one is the number of leftovers.

A bowl of yesterday’s stew. Half a roast chicken. Cooked vegetables ready to become tomorrow’s soup. Stock cooling after making broth. Rice awaiting a teatime salad.

Cooking larger quantities saves time, reduces waste and means nourishing food is always within easy reach.

Many of our best meals begin not with a recipe but with opening the fridge and asking, “What can I make with what’s already here?”

A Fridge Full of Possibilities

People often imagine that an ancestral diet requires a fridge and pantry full of unusual ingredients. In reality, my fridge contains remarkably ordinary foods.

The difference isn’t so much what is there as how it’s been produced, how it’s prepared and how it fits together. Traditional fats instead of industrial oils. Fermented foods instead of ultra-processed snacks. Leftovers instead of ready meals. Seasonal vegetables instead of packets that have been shipped half way around the world.

Every fridge tells a story. Mine tells the story of a kitchen where food is cooked from scratch, fermented foods are always close at hand, and yesterday’s meal is often the beginning of today’s.

If you’d like a deeper look inside two ancestral food refrigerators on opposite sides of the world listen to What’s in our Fridges? from Ancestral Kitchen Podcast.

You Might Also Like:

Twenty Steps to an Ancestral Kitchen – this free PDF download with an informative resource list can be found at the top of any page on my podcast site.

5 Simple Ways to Start Cooking Ancestrally

What Does Eating Ancestrally Mean?

What Ancestral Eating Isn’t

I often get questions, such as: What’s the difference between ancestral and paleo? Does an ancestral diet include grains? What foods can you eat on an ancestral diet? And what did our ancestors really eat?

Their answers are more complex – and, often, more interesting – than many articles online and in books would have you believe. They also give each of us, no matter where we live, what our health goals are and how much money we have, a positive way out of our society’s unhealthy, industrial food world.

The ‘ancestral diet’, as I see it here at Ancestral Kitchen, is not a rigid set of rules, but a way of learning from the wisdom of food traditions that nourished generations before us. Rather than cutting food groups, worrying about calories or following the latest trend, this way of eating turns to traditional food cultures for its foundations, practises and inspiration.

In this guide, we’ll explore what an ancestral diet is, what foods it includes, how traditional peoples prepared their food, and how you can begin eating ancestrally in your own home.

What Is the Ancestral Diet?

The ancestral diet is an approach to eating based on traditional foods and traditional methods of food preparation. It does not prescribe a single list of approved foods. Instead, it asks us to consider and learn from how people ate before industrial food production transformed the food supply.

>> What is Ancestral Eating? (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Not all traditional cultures around the world ate the same way. Scottish crofters, English farm labourers, Mediterranean villagers and Arctic hunters all ate different diets. Yet certain principles appear again and again:

• Real, minimally processed foods
• Seasonal ingredients
• Traditional animal fats
• Fermented foods
• Home cooking
• Time-tested methods of preparation

The ancestral diet is therefore best understood not as a set of rules but as a philosophy of food rooted in history, tradition and practical kitchen skills.

Ancestral Diet Foods: What Can You Eat?

One of the most common questions people ask is: what foods can you eat on an ancestral diet?

No traditional food group is excluded, which means the answer is surprisingly broad.

Animal Foods

• Meat
• Fish and shellfish
• Eggs
• Organ meats
• Bone broths and stocks >> Bones & Water: The Magic of Stock (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Dairy Foods

• Milk
• Cream
• Butter
• Cheese
• Yoghurt
• Kefir

Vegetables and Fruit

Fresh, seasonal produce formed an important part of many traditional diets. Depending on the season, foods were eaten fresh, dried, fermented or preserved.

Grains and Legumes

• Oats
• Wheat
• Rye
• Barley
• Peas
• Beans

Contrary to popular belief, grains and legumes have played important roles in many traditional diets. But they were rarely eaten as they are today – ancient varieties were standard and special preparation methods, which we can easily recreate in our modern kitchens – were employed to make them more nutritious.

>> Baking with Ancient Grains (free 30-page downloadable guide)

Traditional Fats

• Butter
• Tallow
• Lard
• Dripping

>> The Fats We Love, The Fats We Leave (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Ancestral Diet Foods: A Historical Perspective

The Industrial Revolution began in the UK in the late 1700s. Ancestral food encompasses the food ways and traditions that came before it. Many modern discussions of ancestral eating focus almost exclusively on what stone-age man ate, missing the nigh on 5,000 years between the end of pre-history and the beginning of industry. In those 5,000 years our ancestors practised local, sustainable food ways that enabled their communities to thrive.

Fermented foods, slow-cooked stocks, nose-to-tail eating, saturated fat and sourdough – these were routinely part of traditional food cultures right up until industrialisation.

Over that time, there was never a single ancestral diet. Instead, there have been countless ancestral diets shaped by climate, geography, culture and available ingredients.

What Did Our Ancestors Really Eat?

Our ancestors ate what was available to them – the land shaping their diets.

In Scotland, oats formed the foundation of daily life for centuries – porridge and oatcakes sustaining generations of families. In parts of northern Europe, sourdough rye breads were staple foods. Across much of the Mediterranean, bread, legumes and dairy products featured prominently.

Most traditional diets included a mixture of plant and animal foods. Meat was often valued and celebrated, but in many communities it was eaten less frequently than modern assumptions suggest.

The ancestral diet is about recognising the common threads that connect traditional food cultures around the world: real food, careful preparation, seasonal eating and practical kitchen wisdom.

Traditional Food Preparation Is Central to the Ancestral Diet

When people discuss ancestral diet foods, they often focus on ingredients. Traditional cultures, however, paid equal attention to preparation. Their methods included:

• Fermenting
• Soaking
• Sprouting
• Culturing
• Slow-cooking
• Drying and preserving

A traditional sourdough loaf differs significantly from a modern industrial loaf. Likewise, a long-cooked bone broth is a different food to a powdered stock cube.

Understanding these methods helps us appreciate that the ancestral diet is about more than simply choosing different ingredients.

Why Fermented Foods Matter in an Ancestral Diet

Fermentation appears repeatedly in traditional food cultures around the world.

Milk became yoghurt and cheese. Vegetables became pickles and sauerkraut. Grains became sourdough breads and porridges.

Fermentation preserved precious food harvests, improved flavour and made food more digestible, Cheese and salami are just two examples of how it also created entirely new culinary traditions.

>>What We’re Fermenting Right Now (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Can Grains Be Part of an Ancestral Diet?

Yes. History tells a much more nuanced story than many modern diet debates.

Many traditional societies relied on grains as staple foods. Oats sustained much of Scotland. Millet was integral to many communities in Africa and Eastern Europe. Heritage wheat featured prominently across the Mediterranean and Middle East.

The much more useful question to ask is not whether grains were eaten, but how they were prepared.

>> Baking with Ancient Grains (free 30 page PDF with instructions and five recipes!)

Is the Ancestral Diet the Same as Paleo?

No. While the two approaches overlap in some areas, they are not identical.

Many traditional cultures consumed dairy foods, grains and legumes.

The ancestral diet draws inspiration from a wide range of traditional food cultures rather than attempting to recreate a single prehistoric menu.

What Does an Ancestral Diet Look Like in Practice?

An ancestral diet can be a lot simpler than you may imagine. Here’s an example of what’s eaten in my house:

Breakfast

Sourdough porridge topped with soaked nuts/seeds, cream with optional seasonal fruit.

Midday meal

A slow-cooked beef stew served with ancient grain sourdough bread.

Supper

Eggs scrambled in lard, millet cooked in bone broth, seasonal salad.

Snacks

Cheese, oatcakes spread with butter, soaked nuts/seeds, seasonal fruit.

An ancestral diet is nutrient-dense, delicious and satisfying – yet it need not be complicated. Leftovers regularly feature in our meals and foods are often repeated. The aim is not perfection or historical re-enactment. The goal is to bring traditional food wisdom into modern life.

>> A Week of Ancestral Meals: What We Really Ate (Ancestral KItchen Podcast episode)

How to Start an Ancestral Diet

Many people ask me this question! I like to suggest picking one thing that appeals to you and starting there. Below is a list of places you could begin, each followed by a resource of mine which will help you get going:

• Learn to make stock >> Bones & Water: The Magic of Stock (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)
• Create a sourdough starter and learn how to bake a loaf >> Make & Maintain a Rye Sourdough Starter (pay what you can mini-course)
• Ferment some vegetables >> Super-Simple Sauerkraut Recipe (blog post)
• Cook more meals from scratch. >> Preparing Nutrient-Dense Meals from Scratch Every Day (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)
• Replace ultra-processed snacks with traditional foods (blog post coming soon!)
• Swap out industrial seed oils for traditional fats >> How to Render Fat at Home (with Q&A) (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)
• Ferment your morning oats >> The Best Way to Soak Oats (blog post)

Small steps are the key to making sustainable change. If you’d like a guide to help you get started, download 20 Small Steps to an Ancestral Kitchen from the top of any page on website of the show I co-host, Ancestral Kitchen Podcast.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Ancestral Diet

Is the ancestral diet the same as the paleo diet?

No. The ancestral diet takes a broader historical view and includes many foods that traditional cultures ate, including dairy products, fermented grains and legumes.

Can you eat grains on an ancestral diet?

Yes. Many traditional cultures relied heavily on grains such as oats, rye, barley and wheat. Traditional preparation methods were often as important as the grains themselves. >> All About Grains: Preparing, Processing & Digesting! (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Is sourdough part of an ancestral diet?

Absolutely. Sourdough is one of the oldest and most widespread traditional methods of grain preparation.

Can you eat dairy on an ancestral diet?

Many traditional cultures consumed dairy foods, particularly butter, cream, cheese, yoghurt and other cultured dairy products. They traditionally ate non-pasteurised milk >> Raw Milk: Our Ancestral Heritage (Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode)

Are potatoes part of an ancestral diet?

Yes. Potatoes have nourished traditional communities for centuries and fit comfortably within an ancestral approach to eating.

Can you eat rice on an ancestral diet?

Yes. Rice has sustained traditional societies across Asia for thousands of years and remains one of the world’s most important staple foods.

What foods should be avoided on an ancestral diet?

Most people focus on minimising ultra-processed foods, industrial seed oils, sugary soft drinks and highly refined snack foods.

Do I need to make everything from scratch?

Although we can all get passionate about making change, trying to do everything at once is, as I know, a recipe for disaster! Start with one practice such as making broth, baking sourdough or fermenting vegetables and build gradually.

Final Thoughts: What Is the Ancestral Diet Really About?

At its heart, the ancestral diet is about learning from the generations who came before us.

It is not a rigid meal plan; there is no list of forbidden foods.

Rather, it encourages us to explore traditional foods, traditional preparation methods and traditional kitchen skills.

Whether that means baking sourdough, making broth, fermenting vegetables, cooking with traditional fats or rediscovering regional food traditions, the goal is the same: to bring the wisdom, joy and flavour of real, ancestral food into our modern kitchens.

More Resources:

Ancestral Kitchen Podcast has over 130 episodes focusing on all aspects of eating ancestrally in our modern-world kitchens.

If you’d like some recipe inspiration, check my stash here.

The Ancestral Kitchen Challenge is a fun, no pressure way to explore an ancestral diet, giving you achievable goals to work at in your kitchen.

For most of human history, rendering fat was not a niche skill. It was simply what happened after butchering. Fat was carefully cut away, chopped, melted slowly and stored. Nothing was wasted. Fat meant calories. It meant flavour. It meant survival through winter.

Today, good-quality lard or tallow can be surprisingly expensive. Yet the process of rendering fat at home is simple, deeply traditional, and immensely satisfying. This guide will walk you gently through how to render pork lard and beef tallow using methods that would be entirely familiar to our ancestors.

Why Render Fat at Home?

To save money:

Eating ancestrally is touted as being expensive. That’s unsurprising when you realise that, for example, shop-bought tallow can cost upwards of £30 per kilogram (20USD per pound). Meanwhile, many butchers will sell (or even give away) back fat or suet for a fraction of that price – my experience is that home-rendered fat can cost as little as a tenth of the price of the shop version .

To get a real food product:

When we strive to eat real food, choosing vegetables and meat carefully, why would we ignore the quality of our fat? When we render lard or tallow at home we know where our fat has come from. We also get to potentially support a community food economy, buying from a farmer local to us.

To enjoy the delicious flavour:

Shop-bought lard or tallow is often made with fat that’s come through the industrial food chain. That, along with the fact that it is often hydrogenated (to extend its shelf life) means that it does not taste good. When you render fat at home, you get to use good fat and apply gentle heat only. The result is that it tastes amazing..

Cooking with home-rendered fat is a joy!

And finally, there is something less tangible but just as important — cooking with fat you’ve rendered yourself is a joy. Pastry, roast potatoes, cookies…they all take on a new dimension of wholeness when you know that you made the fat at home.

Understanding the Different Fats

Pork:

Pork fat, once rendered, becomes lard.

The fat from the pig’s back is most commonly used, though lard made with kidney fat — known as leaf lard — has traditionally been prized for delicate pastries because of its mild flavour. If you can access it, you can also render the fatty membrane surrounding the organs – this is called caul fat.

Beef:

Beef fat, once rendered, becomes tallow.

The fat from the cow’s back is most commonly used. The hard, crumbly fat around the kidneys of a cow can also be rendered. It is called suet when raw; once melted and strained, it is also tallow. Beef caul fat  (which surrounds the organs) can also be rendered.

Though rendered fats can vary greatly, lard is generally softer and whiter than tallow. Lard can be spread from the fridge, whereas if you want to use refrigerated tallow you’ll need to break off chunks.

How to Render Fat at Home (Traditional Methods)

At its heart, rendering is simply melting fat slowly enough that it liquefies without burning. The ideal temperature to maintain during the process is around 104–121°C (220–250°F).

As a rule of thumb, lower and slower is always safer than hotter and hurried.

The First Step: Chop Your Fat

The smaller you can get your pieces of fat, the easier it will be to get the lard or tallow out of them – the heat will reach all the parts more quickly. So start by chopping the raw fat into small pieces. This can be done by hand, with a hand/electric mincer or even with the grating blade of your food processor. This is the most time-consuming part of the whole process (trust me, it gets easier after this!) – here are some of my tips for this stage:

• If you’re doing this by hand, use a sharp knife!
• If your fat still has a lot of meat attached and it’s hard to clean it up, consider using the wet-rendering method below as opposed to the dry rendering method
• Chill or partially freeze your raw fat to help make it easier to mince
• You can use the cracklings (the left over pieces of fat) post-rendering (see below for recipes). If you’d like to this this, chop by hand rather than mince to stop them being too small.
• If your butcher/farmer has an electric mincer, you could ask them to pre-mince the fat for you!

Once your fat is chopped, Two distinct methods of rendering are common. Choose the one that suits you based on your needs:

The Dry Rendering Method

With dry rendering, the finely chopped fat is placed directly into a heavy pot, oven dish or slow cooker and heated gently without added water. As it melts, you pour off the liquid fat periodically before returning the in-progress fat pieces to the heat.

You can do this process in the oven (at around 104C/220F to 121C/250F) or in a slow cooker (including the Instant Pot on its slow cooker setting).

The rendering process should take around six to nine hours, depending on the size of the fat and the temperature of your heat source. Return to the pan every 60-90 minutes and pour off the liquid fat. When the cracklings are small, crisp and give up little fat, you are finished.

Check my full step-by-step guide to how to render lard in a slow cooker, which walks through the process in detail – its methods can be applied to an oven too.

The Wet Rendering Method

Wet rendering differs from the dry method in that you add a small amount of water to the pot that contains the fat. As it heats gently, the water prevents scorching and helps separate any impurities from the mix.

Just like dry rendering, this process can be done in the oven (with a lidded pot) or in a slow cooker (including the Instant Pot on its slow cooker setting) To wet render fat, pour half a cup of water into your pot, then add the chopped fat. Turn on the heat to between 104C/220F to 121C/250F and allow the fat to melt slowly.

Depending on the size of your fat pieces and the temperature of your heat source, this process may take six to nine hours. As the hours roll on, check the progress by looking at the size of the fat pieces – once they are much smaller (less than a third the size they were), strain off the liquid into a large bowl and allow it to cool. It will separate – the fat rising to the top and the water remaining at the bottom. Once cool, place the bowl in the fridge – here it will solidify into a firm, pale layer of fat above any remaining water.

One solid, lift off the layer of fat and turn it over. The bottom will potentially have impurities and some remains of the water clinging to it. Scrape this off so that you are left with a surface of clean, dry fat.

Should I dry or wet render?

I am often asked this question. Here are considerations to think about when deciding:

• Dry rendering has fewer stages – you don’t need to cool, refrigerate and then scrape the result. Wet rendering generally takes me two days, I can complete dry rendering in one.
• Dry rendering is better if you have ‘clean’ fat that isn’t dotted with pieces of meat still attached – as these would create impurities that would remain in the fat.
• With dry rendering, it’s easier to tell when the process is complete – the liquid you can pour off will reduce substantially.
• Wet rendering does not require you to return to the mixture every 60 – 90 minutes; you can turn it on and forget about it for at least four to six hours, and, when you get used to how long it takes for you, you could potentially leave it longer.
• Wet rendering is better if you have fat that is dotted with pieces of meat – the impurities will get moved to the water and discarded.

How To Know When It’s Done

There is no hard and fast rule for this. Every batch of fat is different; the size of the pieces makes a big difference and the temperature of your heat source impacts the timing too. As you render regularly you will begin to learn the cues and what works for you.

The biggest indicator is the size and colour of the fat pieces. As the fat renders, they will become smaller – potentially reducing to a third or a quarter of their original size. They will also, particularly with dry rendering, turn golden.

If you are dry rendering, the amount of liquid you can pour off in every check will decrease substantially. When I dry render, there is always a moment of diminishing returns – do not risk scorching the fat chasing the final spoonful!

Storing Rendered Fat

Well rendered fat should last well even left out on the counter.

But, after a decade of rendering fat, I still do not choose to leave mine on the counter.  Why? Because rendering fat is a commitment of money, energy and time and even a small chance of it going bad is not something I want to happen!

When rendering day is done, I keep one container of lard or tallow in my fridge and freeze the rest. ‘Clean’ fat (fat in which you can’t see impurities – they will generally settle on the bottom of the container) will last two to three weeks in the fridge and many years in the freezer.

How to know if it’s gone bad

If you see mould on your fat, discard it. Other than that, it may go ‘rancid’ (off). You can judge this by the small – rancid fat smells unmistakably unpleasant — sharp and stale. I very rarely have fat go rancid, but if you’re in doubt, discard it.

Cooking With Rendered Fat

I use home-rendered fat in my kitchen many times a day. Here are my suggestions:

• Spread lard on bread and top it with salt
• Fry bread in lard or tallow
• Dot lard over a tray of vegetables, add some spices/herbs and then bake them in the oven
• Use lard in enriched-dough breads, in place of butter
• Use tallow or lard to fry vegetables, meat or pancakes
• Lard is great to grease bread baking tins, cake moulds, cookie sheets and gratin dishes
• Melt tallow and lard and, using a pastry brush, paint them over butternut squash slices before the oven
• Make Traditional Scottish Oatcakes using the traditional lard or tallow!

What to Do With the Leftover Solid Fat (Cracklings)

I love cracklings, viewing them a gift, not a by-product. Eat them warm with salt. Scatter them over soups or scrambled eggs. Fold them into bread. My Italian-inspired Pane con Ciccioli is a beautiful example of turning these small, crisp pieces into something celebratory.

You can also make a delicious spread from them by checking my recipe: 7 ways to use lard (including a crackling spread recipe).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between suet and tallow?

Suet is the raw kidney fat from cattle or sheep. Once rendered and purified, it becomes tallow.

Can you use suet without rendering?

Yes, suet is traditionally used in British ‘puddings’ (steamed dishes) without rendering.

Why is some rendered fat yellow?

Fat can vary in colour. Beef fat is more yellow that pig fat. Grass-fed animals often produce yellower fat due to carotenoids in pasture. The breed and season also influence colour.

How long does rendered fat last?

Years in the freezer. Many months in the refrigerator. Room temperature storage depends entirely on cleanliness and dryness.

Can I render fat in a slow cooker?

Yes. A slow cooker provides steady, gentle heat and is an excellent tool for rendering lard or tallow.

If I want to use rendered fat in cosmetics/toiletries, how should I render it?

If you are planning to use your home-rendered fat in home-made toiletries or cosmetics, it’s best to wet render it. This method will help removed impurities better than dry rendering. Many people who wet-render for this purpose add salt to the fat/water mix (to pull our more impurities) and, once the finished fat has solidified, render it a second and even third time with more water/salt to cleanse it further.

Where can I get good-quality fat as an economical price?

The best place to start looking for good-quality fat is a local farmer. They may not be used to people wanting fat; tell them what you’d like, how much you’d like and what you’re going to use it for. If you don’t yet have a local farmer network and would like to build one, visit local farmers markets, talk to friends and ask at local shops.

Can I eat the fat off the top of my broth?

Yes. Broth, particularly beef broth, when cooled will be topped with a layer of fat. The easiest way to access this is to put your strained broth, still in the bowl, in the fridge. The top fat layer will harden and, the next day, you can carefully remove it. This fat will not last as long as ‘properly’ rendered fat (as it has impurities and liquid in it), but can be kept in the fridge for four to five days.

I save my drippings, isn’t this rendered fat?

Yes, it is. Any fat that drains from bacon, joints or burgers is technically rendered fat. Do scrape your pans after cooking – the fat is often infused with cooking ingredients (salt and herbs/spices) and it delicious. Keep it in the fridge and use it to spread on bread or fry some vegetables.

How can I learn more about rendering fat?

Ancestral Kitchen Podcast has an episode dedicated to rendering fat: How to Render Fat at Home (With Q&A)
If you’d like to know which fats I cook with and why, there is also this Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode, The Fats We Love, The Fats We Leave

You might also like:

How To Render Lard in the Slow Cooker
7 Ways to Use Lard (Including a Lard Crackling Spread Recipe)
How To Make Lardo (Italian Cured Pig Fat) at Home

Several decades on, I am still an oat-lover (in fact, I’m such a fan that I’m currently writing a book on traditional British uses of them). But if you look in my kitchen now, you’ll find many more types of oats than just my childhood rolled ones.

The choice on our shelves these days can be bewildering – groats, rolled, thick, old-fashioned, quick, instant, oatmeal, pinhead, steel-cut, sprouted, black and naked. This article is a comprehensive guide to the types of oats available, how they’ve been processed and how to use each type the traditional way.

What are oats?

Almost all of the oats you’ll find in kitchens throughout the world are seeds of the grass genus Avena Sativa. These grow covered by a hard, inedible hull which has to be removed before the seed can be used as a grain. The hull adheres strongly to the seed and in the process of removing it the grain is very often damaged and exposed to the air. This activates an enzyme called lipase which degrades the fats in the oats causing them to go rancid, giving them a bitter taste. To avoid this happening, oat grains are ‘stabilised’ (heat and steam treated) at the very early stages of processing.

Most of the oats we buy are already ‘cooked’

This stablilsation means that the oats that make it to our kitchens (unless they are naked or sprouted oats) have been ‘cooked’ using a mix of heat and moisture (at an average temperature of 90-100°C).

Once the dehulling and stabilisation has been completed, oats are processed in a number of ways. This article explains what you might see at your mill or supplier, sorted from the least-processed to the most-processed:

Types of oats, how they’ve been processed and how to use each the traditional way

Oat groats

These are whole, unground, uncut oat grain. As they are whole grains, they take the longest to cook of any oat.

These weren’t often traditionally-used for porridge (though our ancestors in the UK did use the for savoury ‘puddings’), but I think they are great cooked this way.

If you want to use oat groats for porridge/oatmeal, cook them as an alternative to rice or add them to a stew, I suggest soaking them overnight in water. The next day, drain and rinse them, before cooking for at least 35 minutes. For a cup of soaked groats, you’ll need around 3 cups of liquid (broth is a great savoury choice instead of water here!)

Stone-milled oats:

The only way of making the whole oat grains into smaller pieces, more suitable for cooking, until well into the 1900s was to process the grains in stone mill. This created a meal (rather than the more commonly found rolled oats we see today). This meal is what our European oat eating ancestors (who didn’t have rolled oats) would have eaten.

Why Our Scottish Ancestors Didn’t Eat Rolled Oats (link to article)

Stone milled oats are still available, though can be harder to source outside of the UK. They come in three grades:

Pinhead oatmeal

Oat groats ground between two millstones set very widely apart to break the groat into a few pieces.

This was traditionally used for porridge (oatmeal), particularly in Ireland.

To make a traditional pinhead oatmeal porridge, soak the oatmeal in water overnight using one part oatmeal to four parts water by weight (you can add a tablespoon of something acidic, like apple cider vinegar to aid digestion) and then, in the morning, cook the mix, adding some salt (traditionally porridge was salty, not sweet), for 20 minutes, stirring regularly.

Medium oatmeal (often called Scottish oatmeal in the US)

These oats have been stoneground with the millstones set to create a medium meal.

Medium oatmeal was traditionally used for porridge in Scotland and in many other parts of the UK. It was also used in haggis, in puddings and sausages and as a coating when frying fish.

To make a traditional medium oatmeal porridge the Scottish way, bring water to the boil and, when it’s boiling, sprinkle in the medium oatmeal, stirring constantly. Once all of the oatmeal is incorporated, turn the pan down low, add salt (traditionally porridge was salty, not sweet) and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring regularly. To serve three people I use 180g medium oatmeal, 900g water and a half teaspoon salt.

Fine oatmeal

By stone-grinding the oat grains with the millstones more closely together, a fine oatmeal is produced.

Fine oatmeal was traditionally used for oatcakes – a savoury oat cracker – as well as a thickener for soups and stews.

Try my recipe for Naturally-Fermented Staffordshire Oatcakes which makes a delicious crêpe-like pancake or my Traditional Scottish Oatcakes recipe which will give you authentic Scottish oat crackers, great with soups or some cheese!

(If you want to try these two recipes and you don’t have fine oatmeal, don’t despair, they can easily be made with rolled oats too – follow the instructions in the recipes!)

Oats produced in steel mills:

In contrast to this traditional stone milling, most of the oats on our shelves today have been processed in modern steel mills. Here’s what you can find:

Steel Cut/Irish oats

Steel cut oats are so called because steel blades cut the whole groat into two or three pieces.

This type of oats are often called Irish oats in the US because the pieces are the same size as pinhead oatmeal, the type of oatmeal historically used to make porridge in Ireland.

In the kitchen, steel cut oats work in a similar way to their stone-ground cousin, pinhead oatmeal. If you want to make a traditional porridge with them, follow the instructions in the pinhead oatmeal section above.

Rolled Oats:

Rolled oats are so ubiquitous these days that one might think they’ve always been around. They are, however, a modern creation; the process of rolling oats only having been invented in 1877.

The Differences Between Rolled Oats and Oatmeal (link to article)

All rolled oats, whether large or small, are steam processed (for a second time, remembering they’ve already been steamed to prevent rancidity) before being rolled. This makes them softer and less likely to create dusty waste.

‘Old-fashioned’ Oats/Rolled Oats/Jumbo Oats

These, being the largest form of rolled oats, are whole oat grains that are re-steamed and run through roller mills to create large flakes.

These can be used to make a non-traditional (but very tasty!) porridge. There’s no need to soak them, cooking for 10-15 minutes on the stove does the job. If you’d like to serve traditionally, add salt during the cooking time.

I also have some traditionally-inspired recipes that use rolled oats! Try my cheesy oatcake-topped cottage pie or my sourdough oatcakes.

‘Quick Cook’ Rolled Oats

To make these smaller flaked oats, broken oat grains are re-steamed and put through roller mills.

These take just a few minutes on the stove to produce a porridge.

‘Instant’ Rolled Oats

These are the smallest, and hence the quickest cooking, form of rolled oats. They were brought to the oat market in 1966 by Quaker (who are now ownedi by Pepsi). Small pieces of oat grain are re-steamed and put through roller mills to create tiny, thin flakes.

I don’t think our ancestors would recognise instant oats (in texture or flavour). As a real food oat-lover, I’ve never used these.

The oat challenge:

If you’ve only ever used rolled oats, try something different this week. It’s easy to get hold of pinhead or steel cut oats – soak them before bed and take a few more moments in the kitchen to cook up your porridge the next morning. I think you’ll be surprised at how great it tastes!

Different Types of Oats – FAQs

Which type of oats is the healthiest?

Generally, the less a food is processed, the healthier it is. With this criteria, oat groats, that have had no further processing than their initial dehulling and stabilising are the healthiest.

But I am of the mind that the real food that you like is the healthiest. If you’re buying, cooking, and eating real food that you will like you’re more likely to continue with it – so choose the type of oat you like best.

How can I access stone-ground oats outside of the UK?

There are companies that import oats that have been stone-ground in the UK to other parts of the world. Check online to see if there’s one near you. In the US, Bob’s Red Mill sell a product called ‘Scottish oatmeal’ which is stoneground oats that are similar to British medium oatmeal.

Can I roll my own oats at home?

Yes you can! And they taste so much better rolled at home! Have a look at my article How to Roll Oats at Home (& 3 Good Reasons To Do It!).

Can I stone-grind my own oats at home?

It is possible to stone-grind oats from groats at home, but it is very difficult to replicate the pinhead/medium/fine grades of oatmeal that are available from large stone mills. This is because the stone mills use a number of sieves to sieve the meal into uniform sizes.

If you have a Mockmill, you can grind oats on any number above #3 (do not grind them on numbers #1 or #2 – the grain is too fatty and will clog up your meal). Using #3 or above will grind the oats but will give you a range of particle sizes from very fine dust to large chunks of oat groat. For making porridge this method works practically but does not replicate the porridge that you would make with uniform-sized commercially-produced oatmeal

How To Make Stone-Ground Oats in the Mockmill (link to article)

I love porridge/oatmeal. What else can I make with oats?

So many things! Here’s a selection of my traditional and traditionally-inspired recipes:

Traditional Scottish Oatcakes

Naturally-Fermented Staffordshire Oatcakes

Sourdough Oatcakes

Cheesy oatcake-topped cottage pie

Sowans: The Scottish Oat Ferment

You can get three traditional oat recipes in my free download The Heritage Oat Collection. Enter your details below and I’ll send to your inbox:

I am currently in the process of writing a book to be called Oats: Recipes & Stories from the British Isles. It will include 50 recipes along with the stories of how this grain sustained many generations of people in the UK. Stay in touch via my newsletter (there is a sign up at the top of every page on this site) to hear the latest on this.

How can I make my oats healthier?

Fermenting your oats will unlock more nutrition and make them easier to digest. Learn how in my comprehensive article:

How to Make Fermented Oats

Is buying organic oats important?

I would always recommend buying organic oats. Choosing organic means that you are supporting farmers who care for our soil and our environment, stewarding it for the next generation. It also means that any residues left over from pesticides or fertilisers aren’t on your grains.

What are ‘naked’ oats?

‘Naked’ oats are a type of oat that, instead of having a hard difficult-to-detach hull, has a paper-thin hull. It is easier to prepare these grains for human consumption – it takes a lot of energy to remove the hard hull on standard oats; not as much energy is needed to remove the paper-thin hull on ‘naked’ oats.

Because these ‘naked’ oats do not have to go through a tough, damaging, process to remove their hulls, they are not heated before they get to our shelves. This results in a oat that is raw.

What are sprouted oats?

Sprouted oats are raw oats that have gone through a soaking and germination process to sprout them. This process is then halted by drying and the sprout knocked off. The sprouted groats can then be used as you would use a standard oat.

What are black oats?

Black oats are a type of oats that has a black hull. They were traditionally grown in large areas of Scandinavia and in Wales. Here are some I saw on a visit to Holden Farm in Wales:

What about oat flour?

Oat flour is a modern phenomenon which is finer than fine oatmeal. It can be purchased but can also be made from oatmeal or rolled oats by processing them in a high-powered coffee grinder or mixer.

You might also like:

The Heritage Oat Collection

The Difference Between Rolled Oats and Oatmeal

Sourdough Porridge

The Fascinating History of Jannock: The Giant Oat Bread That Defined Authenticity!

The Best Way to Soak Oats

Traditional Scottish Oatcakes

The healthy, tasty, gluten-free oat grain can be fermented into a myriad of dishes, including porridges, jellies, oat cakes, pancakes and ovened bakes. This free training will share how and give you recipes to create in your own kitchen!

The session begins by explaining what ancient grains are, and how they differ from modern wheat. I give examples of ancient grains and explain how they’ve been utilised in fermentation for many thousands of years.

I then get down to practicalities and walk you through the ways you can ferment ancient grains in your own kitchen. From porridges to flat breads, sourdough to bubbling drinks, there’s something here for every fermenter, whether you’ve just started or are an old hand!

In this session, you will learn:

• What an ancient grain is
• The different available ancient grains – those with gluten, low gluten and gluten-free
• How these grains differ from modern wheat
• The multiple ways you can ferment ancient grains; making porridges, polentas, drinks, pancakes, breads, pizzas and cakesHow these grains differ from modern wheat
• Of a unique Scottish, zero-waste ferment
• The detail on an ancient Eastern European fermented millet drink
• All about ancient grain sourdough
• Why you might be fine eating an ancient grain gluten-containing sourdough when standard wheat breads make you ill
• The differences you need to be aware of when making breads with ancient grains

Download the free PDF that accompanies this training by clicking here.

Does anyone who turns 50 actually feel 50?! I don’t know.

I don’t feel 50.

If you ask me how old I feel, I’d probably say mid 30s.

This was me, mid 30s, landing in the town in Tuscany that I called my home for five years:

It was a few years after this that I started learning about ancestral food. As you’ll know, if you’ve followed my story, food and I have had an ‘interesting’ relationship.

I celebrated my first ‘big’ birthday, my 18th, having never really known being anything other than substantially overweight. Food, specifically sugar-laced food, was my escape, a sensual experience that gave me the comfort, gratification and love that was lacking in my home life.

Between my 18th and the next big birthday, my 21st, I lost half my body weight. Looking back, losing it was the easy part. The following decades of learning to be Alison without the addiction; the turning towards many painful things in my life/psyche has been so much harder. Through addressing thorny habitual ways of being, bringing to life the things that I actually care about and connecting with my food, 50 looks a lot more peaceful than 18.

Engaging with ancestral foods and the lifestyle that supports them, as I did in my 30s, has taught me so many things. It feels like a worthwhile task to try to encapsulate some of those things to mark my 50th.

The world has not taught me these without a fight. And the ones that I refuse to learn, keep coming back and hitting me over the head again and again!

50 things an ancestral lifestyle has taught me:

Food heals. But there is so much more to health than food; you can get your diet ‘perfect’ and still be very unhealthy and it’s too easy to hide behind food changes and ignore other, unbalanced, parts of your life.

There are people who believe in the same things you do. No matter how isolated you feel, you are not alone. The incredible boon of information technology (is it the only one?!) is that we can find these people. I thought I was alone and yet I’ve found thousands of people through my work. Put it out there.

As much as technology can connect us, technology can ruin our lives. Most people are sleeping through this, unaware of the many, many ways they are being manipulated; how their life could be so much more alive if they began by looking up from their phone.

People who aren’t ready to change aren’t worth trying to persuade. Do not give your energy to them. Focus on what you’re doing and fine tune your instinct so you can notice those precious moments when others are receptive.

One size does not fit all, food-wise. And there are some things health-wise, that you just can’t get over. But, you can almost always make them somewhat better.

Self acceptance is the key to becoming softer, not harder, as you age.

Integrity – truly being in alignment with the choices you make – is one of the most worthwhile goals to aim at. When enacted, it feels so very good and also moves you forward in your life.

There is always another, deeper, layer than the one you’re working on now. And to uncover it will probably take longer than you think.

Patience can be learnt through actions.

Clarity is a pre-requisite to right forward movement. Question what you want again and again. If there’s any doubt that it feels right, circle back around and start over.

It’s not about all or nothing, in fact, all or nothing can be very harmful.

Saturated fat does not make you fat!

Most of the world still believes that saturated fat makes you fat.

Our biome is the master controller of our health.

It is very hard to change our biome.

No one knows more about your body than you. By all means take in information, but listen to yourself first.

In order to understand what your body is saying, take quiet time.

You can trust your instinct, but you won’t know what your instinct sounds like until you test out your inclinations, watch what happens and take time to reflect.

The thing that you ‘can’t do without’, food-wise, is so often the thing that is messing you up.

Changing something around in your diet, even if only for a couple of days, can be so revealing.

You can survive without the thing that you think you absolutely need.

Rest. Rest. Rest.

Following what brings you joy is the way to move forward in your life.

Cooking is not a frivolity. Cooking can be an incredibly deep way of connecting – to your digestion, your food, the soil, the community and your family.

Cooking is an art form.

The closer you get to your food, the more you value it and see the profound impact it has on all areas of your life and the world around you.

All actions have a consequence. Even ‘good’ actions.

Pushing harder is not the answer.

Restricting your choices in the kitchen will force you to be more creative.

Humans are founts of creativity – you have more than you will ever know.

Examine any resentment you hold. Over and over again.

If you want to remain active, choose a lifestyle where you have to be active.

Changes you make now will have an impact on you in 20 years time.

Having children at home is such a challenging lifestyle but brings immense benefits.

We can do things we never believed possible.

Lean on your past work. Remember challenges you’ve been through in the past and hard things you’ve done.

When we have clarity of direction and we put in effort, things shift. But 99% of the time it’s always slower than we want.

Calories are not what the world thinks they are.

There is so much going on outside the bubbles we live in…but sometimes it’s best to live in our bubbles.

Community is so, so important. Support can be the difference between giving up and keeping going. Plus it enlivens your life.

The creative process is incredibly challenging. But the payoff is magnificent.

Learning to accept, not fight failure is a key to being fulfilled. If we can pass this on to our children, we have done amazingly.

Screens are addictive and change your brain patterns.

I think I got 50, right?!

So, with all these lessons offered to me, where am I at? Here’s the flavour of the beginning of my 6th decade in the world:

What I’m working on:

The podcast, my blog, homeschooling, preparing three meals a day…these all fill my days and continue with their challenges. But my edge is my book; it’s offering up a chance for me to be moulded, to go deeper, to learn and to practise…

How can it really take this long?! There’s never enough time to write.

And I want it to be successful. But I know from experience that unless I act with integrity, I will suffer the consequences. So I question, again and again, yes, this action might promote the book, but how do I feel about it? When I hear a whisper of a doubt I try to stop and put plans to one side. The cycle of finding actions with integrity will start again.

What I still have to learn:

I need to remind myself of everything that I’ve written above.

Right now, I walk forward with goals that do not seem, to my rational mind, possible. I hold the belief that by honing my clarity and making effort towards my aims, things I would never imagine will move around me to support me.

And, as always for me it’s vital to remember that I don’t need to push.

Before I head off, don’t forget that you can support my work by sharing it with others, engaging with my courses, joining me at The Kitchen Table as a podcast supporter or leaving me a donation.

You might also like:

Letting Go of A Dream…I’m Leaving Italy – reflections upon leaving Italy after a decade of living there.

Come sit at my table and I’ll tell you a story – what I tell you if we sat together, with tea, and you asked about my life.

Alison in Pictures – a visual glimpse into my life.

What is oatmeal?

In the UK, which has a long oat-eating tradition, this meal, made from oats, is called oatmeal. The use of the word oatmeal to describe uncooked stone-ground oats often causes confusion with American English speakers for whom oatmeal is a dish of rolled oats cooked and eaten for breakfast. You can read about the differences between these two terms and more about oatmeal in my article The Difference Between Oatmeal and Rolled Oats.

Stone-ground oats, known as they are in the UK, as oatmeal, come in various grades – fine, medium and coarse (or pinhead). Oats ground this way have been used, historically, to create a huge variety of dishes, from porridges, to flatbreads, steamed savoury puddings, sausages and stuffings.

Get three traditional British oat recipes in my Heritage Oat Collection. Enter your details below and I’ll send it to your inbox.

Why use oatmeal?

I always have a bag of oatmeal in my own kitchen. I create Traditional Scottish Oatcakes, use it for tasty hot breakfasts and often coat meat or fish with it. I prefer the flavour and working properties of oatmeal to rolled oats. Here’s why:

• All oats (except the ‘naked’ variety) have been heat-treated before they arrive in our kitchens. Shop-bought rolled oats however, have been heat-treated twice, a process which causes further nutrient and flavour loss. I find the once-treated oatmeal to be tastier than rolled oats.
• Medium oatmeal has more of a ‘bite’ than rolled oats. In porridge (the British English word for oatmeal) this is really satisfying and when included in a oatcake dough the result is crisper and crunchier than rolled oats.

Why grind your own oatmeal in a home-mill?

In the UK, where I live, it is possible to buy commercially-produced oatmeal. But that’s not true everywhere. Readers of my blog and listeners of my podcast living in other parts of the world who wish to recreate my recipes often find it hard to source stone-ground oats.

(If you must buy a commercial oatmeal, the USA has a few options: Bob’s Red Mill produce oatmeal and sell it under the name ‘Scottish Oats’ and ex-pat focused food sites often import it from the UK)

I am a strong advocate of home-milling, buying virtually all my grains whole and using a Mockmill 100 to grind them into flour just before I bake bread. Purchasing the mill and moving from shop-bought flour to home-milled transformed my bread-making – making it cheaper, fresher, tastier and more fulfilling. Why would I not extend those results to oats?! I started by rolling my own oats, using a manual roller mill and, since then, have moved onto creating the traditional British ingredient – oatmeal – too!

I’m here to share what I’ve learnt and guide you through creating both fine and medium oatmeal from the whole oat groats in your own kitchen.

Why you’d want to process you own oats from whole oat grains at home, rather than buying shop-bought oats:

• You can make oatmeal – stone-ground oats – which is difficult to source outside of the UK
• It’s cheaper to buy oat grains in bulk and home-mill
• The resulting oat dish will be fresher, it’ll taste better and it will have more nutrients
• You can start with whole ‘naked’ oats which have not been heat-treated, therefore obtaining a truly raw oat

How to Make Stone-Ground Oats (Oatmeal) in a Mockmill

Equipment

Mockmill

This process can be replicated with other grain mills, but I have only been able to test on a Mockmill.

Sieves

For fine oatmeal: I use a 1.5mm sieve (the closest to this in American terminology is a size 12) For medium oatmeal: I use a 1.5mm plus a 2.5mm sieve (the closest to this in American terminology is a size 8).

Why use sieves?

I’m often asked why I don’t just grind the oats and use everything that comes out of the mill. I have tried this. Whilst it tastes good, it does not replicate traditional British oatmeal. When you grind oat grains on, for example, a medium grind, you end up with a mix of relatively thick pieces of oat and a lot of very fine flour. This mix, if made into porridge, will have a much more cement-like texture (because of the very fine flour) than medium oatmeal. Using sieves, it’s easier to grind more thickly and sieve out the smaller particles.

Directions to create both fine and medium oatmeal using a Mockmill

In both of these cases, I start with around 130g (depending on your grain size, around 2/3 cup) of whole oat grains.

Grinding process to optimise fine oatmeal production:

• Grind the oat groats using Mockmill setting number five.
• Put the grinding results through your 1.5mm/size 12 sieve. Don’t force the oats through the sieve, but do both agitate the sieve and use your fingers/spoon to distribute the oats over the surface of the mesh. The resulting mix collected in the bowl underneath represents fine oatmeal. Put it to one side – it’s ready to use. With this first step, I am usually able to generate a little under 100g of fine oatmeal.
• Alter the Mockmill to setting number three (Mockmill don’t recommend milling oats at a level finer than number three on their 100 model).
• Put the larger oat pieces that remain in your sieve through the Mockmill again.
• Repeat the sieving process. More oat particles will go through the sieve and the resulting mix collected in the bowl underneath represents additional fine oatmeal. Add it to your previous stash. With this second step, I am usually able to obtain an extra 20g of fine oatmeal.

At this point you can do a third pass of the larger oat pieces that remain in your sieve through the Mockmill, attempting to make yet more fine oatmeal. When I do this, I can usually add another 6g to the total fine oatmeal (resulting in a total of 94% conversion in total).

You’ll be left with very small amount of larger oat pieces. You can either add them to the fine oatmeal you have made (they’ll only be around 6% of it) or use them in porridge/bread/biscuits.

The video below is of commercially-produced fine oatmeal. This is what you’re aiming for:

Grinding process to optimise medium oatmeal production:

• Grind the oats using Mockmill setting number 10.
• Put the grinding results through your 1.5mm/size 12 sieve. Don’t force oats through the sieve, but do both agitate the sieve and use your fingers/spoon to distribute the oats over the surface of the mesh. The resulting mix collected in the bowl underneath represents fine oatmeal (with particles less than 1.5mm across). With this method, I’m usually able to generate around 60g of fine oatmeal, less than using the Mockmill setting number five (detailed above), which is good because here I’m trying to optimise medium oatmeal!
• Put the oats remaining in your 1.5mm/size 12 sieve through a 2.5mm/size 8 sieve. The resulting mix collected in the bowl underneath represents medium oatmeal (with particles between 1mm and 2mm across). With this method, I am able to generate 46g of medium oatmeal.
• You will be left with around 22g of large pieces of oat in the sieve.

The video below is of commercially-produced medium oatmeal. This is what you’re trying to replicate:

What to use these for!

• Fine oatmeal makes wonderful oatcakes!
• Medium oatmeal is really good in porridge.
• Medium oatmeal can be made into a scald and included in a bread dough.
• Medium oatmeal can be used as a breadcrumb alternative or made into stuffings.
• The large, leftover, pieces of oat can be included in porridge, but are also great decorating the top of a loaf of bread and can be used as a oat bran substitute.

What about steel-cut oats?

It’s very difficult to make steel-cut oats in a home grain mill because, commercially, this is made by shearing oats with a steel blade, a process very different to stone-milling. It is potentially possible using Mockmill setting higher than 10 and a larger sieve, but I have not tried it.

How is this better than grinding oats grains in a blender?

If you search online for how to grind oats, you will find a myriad of resources telling you to whizz up rolled oats in a blender/coffee grinder. In my experience, as well as potentially damaging your equipment (ask me how I know!) this results in a very fine, dust-like flour which is not the same as fine oatmeal or medium oatmeal.

Plus, as I explained above, rolled oats have been heat-treated twice and so are less flavourful and less nutrient-dense product. Why would you use them if you could make oatmeal yourself, freshly, from whole oat groats?

More on oats…

I know no other way of describing my relationship with oats than ‘obsessive’ I am a devotee of the grain. If you love oats too, check the other posts linked in this article or browse my oat posts and get on my newsletter – I share lots of oat information there and you’ll be kept up to date on my forthcoming book bringing the traditional oat recipes of the UK into our modern kitchens.

Sourdough rye breads are a staple in my kitchen, made every week. I taught myself the process over a decade ago in order to feed my husband, who has a wheat intolerance. But once I’d tasted home-made sourdough rye myself, I was hooked! Since then I’ve gone on to share my love of baking rye with readers here, on my podcast and with hundreds of students in my course Sourdough Rye Bread: Mastering the Basics.

Why make sourdough rye bread?

I make sourdough rye bread because I love its flavour. But rye has so many more reasons to recommend it:

• Rye is three times lower in gluten than wheat, and the gluten it does contain is of a different nature. This means that those of us who struggle with gluten can often enjoy rye without issues.
• Rye has the highest fibre of all the grains we commonly use in our kitchens.
• Rye is so nutritious – as well as all that fibre it is high in B vitamins and minerals.

Why use wholegrain rye?

All of my sourdough rye breads are made with wholegrain rye. Here’s why I love to use it:

• Including the bran brings so much flavour to the bread; much of the infamous depth of rye (think pumpernickel, rugbrod and all of those German/Eastern European breads) comes from the bran.
• By using the whole grain we are ensuring our cooking is zero waste.
• Most of the fibre content of grains is in the bran; when we include that we get all of the nutrition.

Why make sourdough?

• By using a home-cultured starter (rather than buying a factory-produced yeast) we bring the entire bread-making process into our own kitchens. This is part of taking a stand against our our industrial food system.
• Sourdough brings such wonderful flavours to bread. For rye in particular, the acidity of sourdough matches the robustness of the grain in a wonderful way, creating flavour-heaven!
• In the sourdough process, complex starches are predigested, meaning your tummy has to do less work when it comes to the eating.

What’s important to know about making rye bread

If you’re in the habit of making wheat bread, it’s important to understand that rye is different. Understanding the differences between wheat and rye, when it comes to breadmaking, puts you in a strong position to create wonderful sourdough rye breads. Here’s how I explain it, simply:

Breadmaking with wheat:

When in contact with water, wheat flour produces gluten. This gluten (assisted by kneading) creates a net-like mesh network which traps gases during the fermentation, rising the bread and creating its crumb.

Breadmaking with rye:

When in contact with water, rye flour produces complex carbohydrates called pentosans. These pentosans create a thick starchy gel which traps gases during fermentation, rising the bread and creating its crumb.

At the same time, the rye bread-making process also creates an enzyme called amylase. Amylase breaks down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. If this happens in your bread, the thick, starchy gel will not be formed and your rye bread will not rise. Amylase cannot survive in an acidic environment hence an important part of the process of making rye bread is to acidify the dough.

You can see me explaining the differences between these two bread-making processes here.

How To Make Sourdough Rye Bread From Scratch

“I made your rye wholegrain sourdough bread and it worked out brilliantly. My previous attempts have been rocks and inedible. This bread had a wonderful texture and traditional flavour!” Geoffrey

Over years of making 100% wholegrain sourdough rye, I’ve learnt that there are six rules – each of them vital to ending up with a risen, sliceable, delicious bread. They’re important and I want to share them with you here. If you’d like to go straight to my recipe, it’s available as part of my Beginner’s Guide to Wholegrain Rye Sourdough, which you can get, in your inbox, by entering your details below:

1 – Have a strong starter

Having a strong sourdough starter is a vital part of any sourdough bread process.

I recommend making your sourdough starter with wholegrain rye flour, because:

• Rye is a very active flour, naturally containing lots of microbes that will super-charge your ferment.
• Rye hydrates differently to wheat and that results in a sourdough starter that is much easier to maintain (you won’t need to refresh it daily; I attend to mine once a week).

How to switch an existing wheat sourdough starter to rye:

It’s easy to switch an existing wheat flour starter to wholegrain rye. To do this simply start refreshing your sourdough starter with wholegrain rye flour instead of your usual wheat flour. After having done this four or five times they’ll be virtually no wheat flour left in your starter.

If you need help with your sourdough starter, read my blog article explaining how to create and maintain a rye sourdough starter, take a look at my visual guide to sourdough starters or take my pay-what-you-can video course.

If you are concerned about the strength of your sourdough starter, don’t use it to make bread. Be patient and keep working on it until you can see it rising well and consistently.

2 – Use a pre-ferment

To make a good sourdough rye bread utilise a pre-ferment. This helps acidify the dough enough to stop amylase destroying your crumb!

A pre-ferment, simply put, is a very big starter!

With a wheat bread, you mix sourdough starter into your dough. Using a rye pre-ferment, you instead take a sizeable portion of the total flour (usually around 30%), mix it with the sourdough starter and leave it to ferment (usually for 12 hours). When ready, this bubbly pre-ferment is mixed into the remaining ingredients.

3 – Hydrate your loaf well

Wholegrain rye flour is thirsty. Where you may be used to making sourdough breads using a 50 to 60% hydration (a water weight of 50 to 60% of the total flour weight), rye will need more. I often make wholegrain rye bread at a 100% hydration (the same weight of water as flour).

4 – Watch the proof

Once you’ve mixed your active pre-ferment into your remaining ingredients, there’s nothing more to do. Rye bread doesn’t take long to bulk ferment or proof. Make sure you watch the fermentation – it is very easy to leave rye bread too long. Look for a small increase in volume and pinprick holes beginning to appear on the surface of the dough.

5 – Use a baker and cover the bread in the oven

Rye bakes much better in a bread baker – by that I mean a container of metal, ceramic or glass. Having sides to climb up will help your bread rise and give it a much more pleasing aesthetic. The added bonus here is that, when using a tin of some form, there is no need for you to worry about shaping the bread!

Make sure that you cover the baker whilst the bread is in the oven. If your tin does not have a lid you can craft one from aluminium foil.

6 – Let your bread cool before you enjoy it!

Once your rye bread is cooked (I like to see an internal temperature of 95C/200F or above) remove it from the tin and leave it to cool completely before cutting. Rye bread continues to form its crumb whilst cooling and you will spoil it by trying to cut it while it’s still hot. If you can, wait even longer; rye bread improves when left for a day or two after baking.

Frequently-Asked Questions:

How do the timings work for this sourdough rye bread method?

Here’s how I make rye bread in my kitchen:

The evening before I want to bake I create a pre-ferment from my active sourdough starter, leaving it to ferment overnight.

The next morning I retrieve the bubbling pre-ferment and mix it into the rest of my ingredients.

I watch this bulk fermentation carefully and, when it is ready, I put the dough into a pan.

I watch the proofing carefully and, when it is ready, I bake the loaf. This is usually around lunchtime.

I leave this loaf to cool fully, not usually cutting it until the next day.

Hence, if I want to bread for lunch on Monday, I begin it with the pre-ferment on Saturday evening, baking it on Sunday.

How should I store my sourdough rye bread?

Sourdough rye bread ages much better than bread made of other grains. In my experience its flavour improves, when left, for up to 5 days. When first cooked, I leave my bread to fully cool on a cooling rack. After the first slicing, I turn it, crumb down, to stand on my breadboard. After this I move it to a metal bread tin which has small air holes and a wooden lid. A fabric bread bag or paper bag is also a good option.

Does sourdough rye bread freeze?

Yes! Sourdough rye bread freezes much better than bread made of other grains. I often cut loaves and freeze one half for weeks at a time or make two loaves in one go, saving one in the freezer for later. Before placing in the freezer, I bag the loaves in a double layer and ensure I expel all the air before closing.

Can I proof my sourdough rye bread in the fridge?

Yes, this is possible. Sometimes, I will mix the pre-ferment into my remaining ingredients in the evening and then immediately place the dough into my fridge. In the morning I remove the dough from the fridge, place it in the pan to proof and bake mid-morning.

Is rye gluten-free?

No, rye is not gluten-free but it contains much less gluten than wheat and the gluten it contains is of a different structure. This means that often, people who have problems with digesting wheat can enjoy rye without issues, especially when it is baked into sourdough. This is what happened to my husband – when I met him 15 years ago he could not eat bread due to a wheat allergy, now he eats sourdough rye bread almost daily without any side-effects.

Can I grind my own flour?

Yes, most definitely, and your bread will be even more incredible if you do! When I started making rye breads I used shop-bought wholegrain rye flour. Some time into my journey, I invested in a Mockmill and I now grind all my wholegrain rye flour from rye berries minutes before I make bread. It is a beautiful process and enhances the flavour (and by enjoyment) of my breads greatly.

My sourdough starter isn’t strong, what can I do?

Keep working on it. There is a lot of information out there on creating sourdough starters and it can be overwhelming. My advice is to find one method/teacher and follow their method exclusively. If you would like my guidance you can read How to Create a Sourdough Starter, follow my visual guide on starters, access my pay-as-you-can video course How to Create and Maintain a Rye Sourdough Starter, and, for extra support, I have a set of 10 free videos here: 10 Tips for Creating and Maintaining a Sourdough Starter.

Do I need to refresh my starter the night before I make bread?

If you want your starter to be the most active it can be, it’s best to refresh it 12 hours before you make the pre-ferment. I’ve found that, my starter, after a decade of care, does not need this and I use sourdough starter straight from the fridge when making my pre-ferment.

I want to start now! Can I get your assistance in making wholegrain sourdough rye bread?

Yes. You can start by downloading my free 30-page guide, Baking with Ancient Grains, which includes a comprehensive recipe for sourdough rye bread. My podcast episode on rye sourdough bread will also help. You can have me guide you, virtually through the whole process in my course Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering the Basics and if you’d like 1:1 time, there’s the option of Sourdough mentoring – I currently offer two packages, a get-going and a trouble-shooting.

To get your copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Wholegrain Rye Sourdough Bread enter you details below:

You might also like:

Differences Between Bread-Making With Wheat And Rye

Ancestral Kitchen Podcast: Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering the Basics