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

I’ve been making sowans in my kitchen regularly for over five years – I love it – and I have also delved into its history for my forthcoming book on traditional British oat dishes. If you’re curious about sowans, this is the article for you!

Sowans, with a Scottish voice, is pronounced ‘sue-ens’. You might see it spelled ‘sowens’ and in the Shetland Isles it was called ‘Virpa’

History of sowans

Although oats have been eaten in the United Kingdom for thousands of years, widespread oat farming only took hold after the Roman invasion when the troops, in order to feed their horses, brought the oat grain to the British Isles. Oats love the UK’s wet, mild climate and quickly caught on as a staple crop.

Although we don’t find the oat fermentation sowans mentioned in literature until the 1600s, it is very likely, knowing how long parts of the UK have subsisted on oats, that this dish was being made long before that date.

Oats were grown close to home. After harvest, the farmers would sent their sacks of oat grains to the mill to be ground into flour (rolled oats didn’t come onto the scene until much later, read about it in my article Why Our Scottish Ancestors Didn’t Eat Rolled Oats). Once the miller had done his job, the householder would not only get sacks of prepared oats back, but also sacks of ‘waste’ (called sids).

These sids were the hulls that had been knocked off the oats as they were processed. Clinging to them were tiny pieces of the centre of the oat grain – the white, starchy endosperm.

Sowans was a zero-waste food

Instead of being thrown away, this bag of waste, the sids, was transformed, through fermentation, into delicious, nutritious food – sowans.

When mixed with water, these sids contained everything needed to complete the fermentation naturally. The tiny pieces of white starch gave the microorganisms in the ferment starch to feed on, and the hull pieces were a haven for yeasts and bacteria. This means that no inoculant (or starter) was needed to create an active ferment – it was already natively in the grain.

Sowans is a porridge

Once the fermentation was complete, the mixture was put through a sieve which removed the pieces of hull/bran and produced a smooth, white liquid. This liquid, which contained the fermenting water and the tiny pieces of the white oat grain was then cooked to produce a porridge.

Making sowans also creates a probiotic drink called swats

The liquid that the oats were fermented with had it’s own name – swats (or swots). This can be drunk as is (and that way is a live probiotic) or can be cooked along with the sowans and therefore included in the porridge. Often, our ancestors would use a large amount of swats in the saucepan and create a liquidy ‘drinking sowans’.

Sowans was traditionally consumed by the whole family on Christmas Eve which was, in some parts of Scotland, knows as ‘sowans nicht’ (sowans night).

Sowans is a health food

Sowans was considered a health food in Scotland. Diving into the process, it’s easy to see why:

Starting with the raw ingredient – oats, as most of us know, oats are known to be beneficial to health. They have a role to play in lowering cholesterol and maintaining blood sugar levels. They also contain beta-glucan which is a prebiotic – meaning it feeds the probiotics in your intestines.

Both the sowans and swats are probiotic foods. Because we cook the porridge sowans, the live probiotics are lost. That does not mean, however, that all the benefits of the fermentation are lost; the latest research tells us that fermentation microbes which remain behind after cooking are extremely beneficial to our health (read more here).

In addition, because the starch in sowans has been both fermented and pre-digested, it can nourish us with proteins/vitamins and minerals with very little digestive effort. This allows our bodies energy to be used in healing, rather than trying to break down our food.

What does sowans taste like?

I have been making sowans and swats in my kitchen regularly, using modern ingredients and equipment, for years. Myself and my family enjoy the product of this fermentation often and love it.

Sowans is creamy and smooth – it feels to me like eating clouds! It’s nuanced in flavour – pleasantly tart but with delicious honey aromas that arise from the fermentation.

The liquid that the oats ferment in, swats, is zingy and fresh, reminiscent of watery lemon juice. It is refreshing drunk cold on a hot day but also wonderful warmed and spiced.

How do you make sowans?

We may not grow oats in our backyard or have access to sacks of sids from our local mill, but we can still enjoy the flavour and health benefits of sowans and swats in our kitchens today!

Oats can be fermented with water (I’d recommend a 1:4 ratio of oats to water) for several days, sieved and then cooked up into this historic, traditional dish.

My course, Sowans: The Scottish Oat Ferment, will guide you through the whole process, no matter what grains you have access to or equipment you have in your kitchen. It includes two hours of video guidance and plenty of downloads to keep at hand. I explain what to look for at every stage and how you can ensure you are safely fermenting your grains.

Here’s a little peak at one of the videos included in the course:

How to eat sowans (and swats)

I want to leave you with the ways my family eat sowans and swats:

Sowans porridge:

Most often, I make a thick porridge with sowans by mixing it with double its volume in water. Other times, I cook the fermented oats in the swats liquid (the swats) instead of water.

Traditionally, this was eaten with salt and butter, but it is also delicious with fruit, honey and nuts or any of the toppings we add to porridge/oatmeal these days!

I also love sowans as a mashed potato substitute! Here it is with sausages:

Drinking sowans:

Drinking sowans is a warming, comforting cuppa. Here, I add more liquid before cooking and make a pourable sowans. This is lovely infused with spices and sweetened with honey.

Sowans in baked goods:

Sowans can also be used as an ingredient in baked goods. Sowans scones were popular in Scotland (there’s a recipe for them in my course). I have also used sowans very effectively in bread-baking to make a ‘scald’ for my sourdough breads. Here’s a link to the recipe for the bread if you want to give it a go!

Swats

Swats is wonderful drunk as it is. It is full of probiotics, zingy and really refreshing from the fridge in hot weather.

But the way I drink it most is gently warmed. I love it straight warm – it’s comforting and nourishing drink. But most often I make what I’ve coined as ‘mulled swats’ – I gently warm the swats on the stove with spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamon, mace, anise.

Aside from drinking, I have used swats as the liquid part of my sourdough breads and built bread starters (or leavens) using swats. I also use the liquid as a starter in other ferments – anywhere where I need a starter.

You might also like:

Traditional Scottish Oatcakes

Sourdough Oatcakes

How to Make Fermented Oats

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!

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.

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

I use a 1mm sieve (size 18 in the USA) to create fine oatmeal and a 2 mm sieve (size 10 in the USA) to create medium oatmeal.

If you only wish to generate fine oatmeal it is fine to have solely a 1 mm sieve. If, however you wish to generate medium oatmeal you will need to have both the sieves (in order to sieve out the fine oatmeal from your desired medium oatmeal).

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 1/3 cup) of whole oat grains.

Grinding process to optimise fine oatmeal production:

• Grind the oats using Mockmill setting number five.
• Put the grinding results through your 1mm 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 (with particles less than 1mm across). With this method, I am usually able to generate around 86g of fine oatmeal.
• After this, if you wish, you can additionally create some medium oatmeal by putting the oats remaining in your 1mm sieve through a 2mm sieve. The resulting mix collected in the bowl underneath represents medium oatmeal (with particle between 1mm and 2mm across). With this method, I am usually able to obtain 32g of medium oatmeal.
• You will be left with around 14g of large pieces of oat in your sieve.

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 1mm 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 1mm 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 1mm sieve through a 2mm 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.

There’s nothing like a breakfast of warm oats on a cold winter day. It’s like a hug in a bowl, and one you know will keep you going until lunch.

But have you tried making your morning oats with fermented oats?

And how about making it zero-waste and adding a probiotic oat drink on the side?

Fermenting oats, zero-waste and probiotic – they all sound so modern you might think they were part of the latest sustainability or health drive. But you’d be wrong. The Scots have been fermenting their oats into two products – a creamy porridge called sowans and a probiotic drink called swats – for centuries!

How it started

The Romans brought the oat grain to Scotland and, seeing that it was perfect for the northern climate and Scottish soil, it soon took hold. Most households back then were subsistence farms who, along with growing their own produce and raising animals, also grew oats. After harvest, they’d send their prized oat grain to the local mill.

Once the oats were ground, they’d get two sacks back from the miller: one sack contained their ground oats and the other sack was full of ‘waste’ – all the bits that had come loose from the grain kernels during the milling process.

The contents of this second sack had a special name: sids. It would have been a dusty mixture of husks (the very outside part of the grain, which protects it), hulls (the bran of the grain) and tiny white crumbs from the body of the oat grain that’d got stuck to the hulls and escaped the mill-stone’s power. Here’s how it looked:

The Scots had traditional ways to use their ground oats; oat cakes being a great example. But they also had a traditional way of using the bag of left-over oat ‘waste’, and that was to ferment it!

Let’s start with how to lacto-ferment oats…

Fermenting rolled oats is quite simple. Put your oats in a bowl, add water and a bacteria-rich starter culture (yogurt, kefir, sourdough starter etc.), stir and wait. The bacteria will start to predigest the compounds in the grain, potentially harmful plant toxins will be neutralised and beautiful fermented flavours will start to develop. (If you want to learn how to do this, check out my video Healthy, Fermented Oats).

The Scots’ extreme oat fermentation!

The Scots took their oat fermentation a step further – wild fermenting the bag of ‘waste’ returned to them by the mill.

The white starchy ‘crumbs’ from the inside of the grain provided the food for the bacteria and yeasts naturally present on the broken pieces of hull/husk left behind after milling. No starter culture was needed, the only addition being water.

And what they got…

After up to two weeks of fermentation, the Scots strained the husk/hull pieces from the fermented mixture and were left with the two foods: Sowans, a creamy porridge and Swats, a tangy drink:

Both were health foods. The sowans because the fermentation process had not only neutralised plant toxins and pre-digested many of the starches, but it had also had the harder-to-digest bran fibre strained out. The swats because, drunk as is, it was full of probiotic bacteria.

And all this, from ‘waste’?!

How we can recreate this in our kitchen

Re-creating sowans and swats in our modern-day kitchens, where we are far more likely to buy in our oats than grow them in our backyard, requires some ingenuity, but is worth the effort.

I’ve been fermenting oat grain into sowans and swats regularly for many years in my home. I love the liquid swats gently heated with spices and my 11-year old son adores the smooth, ice-cream-like texture of the sowans as his morning porridge.

Most often, I use a roller mill to make the grain into porridge oats and ‘waste’ crumbs, but I’ve also often made sowans and swats by pulverising oat groats in my blender or with oat flour.

If you’re interested in taking your oat fermentation to the next level and stepping into the shoes of a Scot a few hundred years ago, check out my course, Sowans: The Scottish Oat Ferment. In it, I’ll guide you through how to make the ferment with whatever equipment you have in your kitchen.

Oatmeal: A Transatlantic Linguistic Difference

A discussion on the difference between rolled oats and oatmeal must start with a definition of the word oatmeal:

In American English, the word oatmeal means a bowl of cooked oats, usually served as breakfast. (In British English, this is called porridge.)

In British English, the word oatmeal means oats that have been stone-ground into a coarse flour.

So, in American English, if you asked for a bowl of oatmeal, you’d be handed a steaming breakfast dish, perhaps topped with fruit and nuts.

But in British English, if you asked for a bowl of oatmeal, you’d be handed a raw ingredient; something that you could use to create your breakfast (which would be called porridge) with.

The Difference between Rolled Oats and Oatmeal

So now we know that, in British-English, oatmeal is not a finished dish but an ingredient to create breakfast with, let’s define the difference between this form of oats and rolled oats.

Oatmeal is…

Oatmeal, in the British English definition, is a product made by stone-grinding oat grains. This process is, literally, squashing the grains between two stones until they break. Once ground, the resulting ‘meal’ is separated into different sizes using sieves. We, as cooks, can then purchase fine oatmeal, medium oatmeal and coarse (often called pinhead) oatmeal.

Rolled oats are…

Rolled oats, which have the same name in both the USA and the UK, are made by passing oat grains through steel rollers to flatten them. Like oatmeal, we can buy rolled oats in different sizes. Large rolled oats are made by rolling whole oat grains. Smaller rolled oats are made by rolling broken oat grains.

Which is Older, Oatmeal or Rolled Oats?

Oatmeal, A Potted History

Our ancestors have been grinding oats into oatmeal for centuries. At first, this was done with two stones. One of these was static, often with a concave top to hold the grain, the other was palm-sized and, being held in the hand, worked the grain to crush it.

From the first century onward, this technology was replaced by the quern – a manually-turned set of two large circular stones – which dominated oatmeal-making for centuries. Although watermills were also prevalent in the UK, one researcher estimated that there were still 2000 querns in Scotland in 1900 (1).

Fast forward to our modern world, and oatmeal is made in large, industrial stone mills. It comes in fine, medium and coarse (sometimes called pinhead) grades.

When Did Rolled Oats Come In?

A machine to roll oats was invented in 1877. The oat grains, once flattened, were more visually appealing than oatmeal and easier to cook. Quaker, then a very young company, saw an opportunity to market rolled oats as a breakfast cereal to Americans (who at that stage did not eat breakfast cereals as we know them today).

Quaker registered the first trademark for a breakfast cereal (which they called oatmeal) and in 1882, launched a ground-breaking marketing campaign that included running the first national magazine adverts for a breakfast cereal and delivering free trial-size samples of Quaker oats door-to-door.

As we know, their oat marketing campaign paid off: Quaker were bought by Pepsi in 2001 for $14 billion and rolled oats are now ubiquitous!

What’s the difference between rolled oats and oatmeal in my kitchen?

Both rolled oats and oatmeal can be made into a hot breakfast cereal (called, confusingly, oatmeal if you’re eating it in the US and porridge if you’re eating it in the UK!)

If you’re making oatmeal/porridge with rolled oats, the smaller the rolled oats are the less time they will take to cook. Cooking ‘old-fashioned’ oats in the US (which are called jumbo oats in the UK) takes around 10 minutes whereas cooking ‘instant’ oats (often called small oats in the UK) takes just a few minutes.

If you are making oatmeal/porridge with oatmeal (ie stone-ground oats), it’s best to use medium oatmeal. I like to soak it overnight in water. After having done this it takes 10 minutes to cook. If I’m unable to soak it overnight, I usually give it an extra 5 minutes cooking time.

What is oatmeal/porridge made with oatmeal like?

I am a porridge fan so my answer is ‘delicious!’. Using medium oatmeal gives the resulting dish more of a ‘bite’ than using instant oats. It’s often tastier too. This is because oatmeal is less processed than rolled oats. All oats (except the ‘naked’ variety) have been steam-heated before they get to our kitchens, but rolled oats are steam-heated twice. In my opinion that means they are often less flavourful than oatmeal.

How can I create porridge like a Scot?!

Our Scottish ancestors would likely not recognise the bowls of steaming oats that we have at our breakfast tables today, neither in the preparation or how they are served. If you want to make porridge like a Scot, here is my advice:

1/ Use medium oatmeal (see below for how to access/make this)

2/ Bring a pot of water to the boil then turn it down to a strong simmer. Whilst stirring with a wooden spoon (or, if you can get one, a spurtle, the traditional Scottish porridge-stirring tool) with one hand, sprinkle oatmeal into the water with your other hand (be careful not to burn yourself on the steam!).

3/ When you have a good consistency (not too thick, as it will thicken up as you cook further), turn the heat down low, rest a lid on the saucepan and cook for a further 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4/Just before serving, stir in a good quantity of the best quality salt you can find.

5/ To serve traditionally, pour the porridge into a wooden bowl and use a wooden spoon. Then to eat as the Scots did, set a small container of cold cream to one side. Take a spoonful of your hot porridge and dip it into the cold cream. Enjoy!

You might also like:

How to Roll Oats at Home (& 3 Good Reasons to Do It!)

How to Make Fermented Oats

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

To access oatmeal/stone-ground oats outside the UK, search local suppliers. In the US, Bob’s Red Mill sells oatmeal branded as ‘Scottish Oatmeal’.

(1) Oats, Their Cultivation and Use from Ancient Times to the Present Day, William M Findlay, 1956, Oliver and Boyd.

Cottage pie is a British favourite that’s been around for 250 years. It’s a frugal dish, developed by home-cooks as a way to use up previously-cooked meat and was traditionally topped with a UK staple: potatoes.

In this version, I’m being faithful to that heritage and using leftover beef (but, if you’d rather use raw ground beef/mince instead, I’ve got you covered). But I’m adding a twist; instead of finishing the dish with potatoes, I’m using rolled oats to make a cheesy biscuit topping.

Before wheat, oats were widely utilised in the United Kingdom – in many places being the only grain crop available. Hence this oatcake-topped cottage pie feels as if it honours traditional British food. Plus, it’s delicious!

Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Cottage Pie

Makes 4 generous servings. You will need a pie dish that is, ideally, 6cm deep. See my pictures below for the dishes I commonly use.

Prep time: 50 minutes

Cook time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients:

For the filling:

2-3 tablespoon fat (can be lard, tallow, butter or olive oil)

1 medium onion

1 stick of celery

1 large carrot

8/10 medium-sized mushrooms

300-400g cold, left over beef*

1 tablespoon concentrated tomato paste

17g (1/8th cup) fine oatmeal (or rolled oats pulsed into flour in a food processor)

300ml beef (or chicken) stock

salt and pepper, to taste

*You can substitute the cold, leftover beef for uncooked ground/minced beef. If doing so, use a little more; I suggest 400-500g raw weight.

For the topping:

300g rolled oats

3.5g salt

155g cheese (a mild or medium Cheddar works best)

60g lard, tallow or butter

135g water

Method:

Make the filling:

• Dice the onion and put it into a medium saucepan on a medium heat with the fat. Give it a stir, then, whilst its cooking, dice the celery and carrot. Add them to the saucepan too, stir well, adjust the heat if necessary and continue to cook until the onions are soft.
• Slice the mushrooms and add them to the vegetables in the pan. Leave to cook, stirring occasionally, for another 10 minutes.
• Mince your leftover beef finely (you do not need a mincer to do this, just chopping it finely is good).
• Add the beef, concentrated tomato paste and oatmeal (or ground oats) to the cooking vegetables and stir well to distribute the oats.
• Add the stock and stir well. Reduce the heat to low, partially cover the saucepan and leave it to cook, stirring every now and again, whilst you prepare the oatcakes.

Make the oatcakes for topping:

Preheat the oven to 180C/375F.

• Grate the cheese.
• Put the oats, salt and 85g of the cheese (reserving the other 70g) in a heat-proof bowl and stir to distribute the cheese.
• Add the fat and water to a lidded saucepan, gently heat the water until the fat is melted.
• Pour the liquid into the dry mixture and stir well.
• Bring the dough together into a ball and cover the top of the bowl with a plate.
• Prepare the oatcakes to top your pie. The number of oatcakes you make and the size of them will depend on the dish you use. If you want to be super-specific, it’ll help you to know that the total weight of the dough you are working with is around 570g. Here is what I do for two different dishes:

For a rectangular dish that is 8inches/20cm by 10.5inches/27cm, I make 12 oatcakes, just over 2 inches/5.5cm in diameter, 1.8cm/2/3 inch deep and weighing 47.5g each.

For an oval dish that is 11 inches/28.5cm by 8inches/19.5cm, I make 9 large and 2 small oatcakes. All of there are 2 inches/5.5cm in diameter and 1.8cm/2/3 inch deep. The large oatcakes are around 58g each and the small ones are 24g.

• Once each oatcake is made, put it gently to one side.

Assemble and bake the dish:

• Once all the oatcakes are ready, try the beef mixture and season to taste. Then turn off the heat and pour the beef and vegetable mix into the cooking dish.
• Arrange the oatcakes on top of the beef and finish by sprinkling on the remaining grated cheese.
• Bake for 30-40 minutes (putting a baking tray/sheet under the dish if you think it might bubble over) until the topping is golden.

How to eat the Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Cottage Pie

Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Cottage Pie is great eaten hot from the oven. It’s easy to divide – the oatcakes give a natural serving size!

I like to serve with steamed or boiled greens and if we’re really hungry I’ll add another dish, such as my Tumeric Buttered Swede (Rutabaga)

How to store the Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Cottage Pie

This dish keeps really well in the fridge for a couple of days and leftovers can be reheated in the oven (I set it to 150C/300F for 20 minutes) before serving.

Variations on the Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Cottage Pie

• Remember you don’t have to use leftover meat. Swapping our for 400-500g of raw mince/ground beef works too.
• Use lamb instead to make this a Cheesy Oatcake-Topped Shepherd’s Pie!
• Mix in some pre-cooked diced or mince offal to add extra budget-conscious nutrition. I often add minced heart, replacing a quarter to a third of the meat.
• Add whatever vegetables are in season/you have in the fridge. Celery adds depth of flavour at an early stage; greens can be chopped finely and used instead of peas.
• Play with spices/herbs. Rosemary, thyme and oregano have often found their way into this dish in my kitchen!

Other posts you might like:

Traditional Scottish Oatcakes

Fermented Oat Bake

What Does Eating Ancestrally Mean?

Watch my You Tube video How to Make Healthy, Fermented Oats here.

Download the accompanying one-page PDF printable instructions to make fermented oats here. Once you click, the file will start downloading to your computer in the background.

If you’d love to get bi-weekly emails offering you lots of information, recipes and inspiration on oats/other ancient grains, real food plus cooking and living ancestrally, enter your details into the boxes at at top of this, or any, page.

And remember to have a read of my comprehensive blog post How to Make Fermented Oats – it has a long FAQ and many more details.

Why ferment oats?

If you are a lover of oatmeal, fermenting your oats before cooking them will take your breakfast to a new level. Here’s why you should do it:

1. Fermented oats taste delicious!

A bowl of oatmeal is already creamy and satisfying but when you ferment your oats with a live starter, they also take on a zingy flavour. Everyone who I have shared this process with has told me that, once they’ve tried their oats fermented, they can’t go back to normal oatmeal!

2. Fermenting oats makes them easier to digest.

Soaking oats softens them and the fermentation process breaks down their complex carbohydrates. This means your digestion does not have to work so hard – less bloating and more energy for your body to do other things.

3. Fermenting oats makes them more nutritious.

All grains contain anti-nutrients that can block the absorption of minerals – by fermenting your oats the right way (using the method below) you will neutralise those therefore making your oats more nutritious.

How to make fermented oats:

Making fermented oats is very simple. Here’s how:

1. Measure your rolled oats (I use around 50-60g per person) into a bowl and cover them with ample water (ideally unchlorinated; if you have no filter you can leave water out overnight and a lot of the chlorine will dissipate).

2. Add a tablespoon of ‘starter’ to the mixture. This can be anything that has live probiotics in it. Some examples are: sourdough starter, yoghurt, milk kefir, buttermilk, apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut juice or kombucha. It’s important that this starter is active. If you are buying it from the store, ensure that it hasn’t been pasteurised after production (the packaging should say ‘live bacteria’).

3. Stir this well then cover the bowl and leave it to stand at room temperature. The length of time you leave your oats to ferment depends on how tangy you would like your resulting oatmeal/porridge. The longer you leave it the more tart it will become. I usually leave my oats overnight (I mix them up before going to bed and then cook them up the following morning).

4. When you are ready to cook your oatmeal/porridge, pour the entire contents of the bowl into your saucepan, add more water/milk as necessary, cook and enjoy.

How to eat fermented oatmeal/porridge

Fermented oatmeal can be eaten in any way that we would eat normal oatmeal.

For many, that means topping with sweet things like fruit and honey in a combination with nuts/seeds.

I often eat my porridge savoury; I like to stir in miso just before serving and then add ground flaxseed and olive oil. Sometimes, for a protein-rich breakfast, a few minutes before they’re done I stir in a couple of eggs, topping the mix with cream. I also love the fermented oats served simply with butter and salt.

Get three traditional British oat recipes (one of them is fermented!) in my Heritage Oat Collection. Enter your details below and I’ll send it to your inbox.

Ways of saving/storing fermented oats

Fermented oats can be kept – both before cooking and after they’ve been cooked.

To store your uncooked fermented oats:

You don’t need to cook your fermenting oats straightaway. If your plans change, or you have too many, put the bowl into the fridge. This will greaty slow down the fermentation. The oats can be stored this way for 4 to 5 days before cooking.

To store your cooked fermented oats:

If you don’t manage to eat all your cooked,fermented oatmeal, you can store it in the fridge. It can be reheated anytime over the following few days – add a little extra liquid when doing so. See the question section below for more ideas on how to use cooked fermented oats.

Fermented oats questions:

Can I ferment steel-cut oats?

Yes, you can use this same method to ferment steel-cut oats. Because they are thicker, they will need a longer cooking time.

How long should I ferment my oats?

This is up to you. I generally ferment my oats overnight, for 12 hours. This produces an oatmeal with a light, tangy flavour. If you want a less marked fermented flavour, ferment your oats for less time or put them in a cooler place. If you love the sour taste of fermented foods you can leave them longer – for 4 to 5 days. If you are leaving the fermentation longer than a day at room temperature, I would recommend stirring them once a day.

Can fermented oats go bad?

This has never happened to me – and I have fermented oats for as long as six or seven days. If you want to leave your oats at room temperature for longer than a day, do stir them every 24 hours.

If you have left the oats fermenting for many days and the smell is too strong for you, you can ‘dilute’ the flavour by adding more dry oats to the mix.

Can fermented oats be eaten raw?

Yes they can, but I prefer to cook mine. Historically, oats have been eaten cooked and heating fermented oats helps make them even more digestible.

Does fermenting oats reduce phytic acid?

Yes. Most oats, during the processing stage, lose their inherent phytase (the enzyme which can help deactivate phytic acid). We can create the conditions to aid the breakdown of phytic acid by fermenting our oats – an acidic environment plus live yeasts and bacteria (the live starter provides both of these). Using warm water, and/or keeping our fermenting oats warm, aids this process as does including a freshly-ground, high-phytase flour (like rye or buckwheat) in the mixture. See my article The Lowdown on Oats and Phytic Acid for more information.

Should I rinse my fermented oats before cooking them?

There is no need to rinse your fermented oats before cooking them. A lot of the goodness of the grain leaches into the water and it’s good to capture that in your final dish.

Doesn’t cooking destroy all the probiotics in my oats?

Cooking fermented produce does kill live probiotics, yes. But the work that those enzymes have carried out on your fermented oats will have brought about many changes in the food which are beneficial – making it easier to digest and more nutritious. In addition scientists are currently researching the benefits of postbiotics and para-probiotics, the microbes that are left behind when fermented foods are cooked, all of which do incredible things for our immune systems. Cultures have traditionally used fermented foods both raw and cooked and a diet utilising fermented foods in many, varied ways is most advised.

Can I ferment my oats in just water?

It is possible to ferment oats using water alone. The grains will have native yeasts and bacteria on them and so will your home environment. I recommend, however, using a live starter – giving your preparation a kick-start of already strong live bacteria makes the process a lot easier and much more likely to succeed. There is however an ancestral legacy of fermenting oats just in water, the Scottish made an oat ferment called Sowans. If you like to have a go, you can find my video course on it here.

Is it safe to ferment oats?

Fermentation is a very safe process. Cheese, chocolate, beer, wine, salami – they are all fermented food that have been made for thousands of years. And when you ferment in clean vessels with an already-strong starter, you are standing in the shoes of generations before you, worldwide, who’ve done just the same.

What if my house is too cold?

Oats will ferment in a cooler environment, they will just take longer. If your home is cool expect the process to take a day or more. If you’d like to speed it up, look for a warm spot – on a shelf above a radiator, on top of your fridge or in an airing cupboard. You can also utilise a ‘proofing’ area; read my article How to Create a DIY Proofing Box for more details.

Can I keep these oats?

Yes you can! If you are not ready to cook them, you can keep them in the fridge for 4 to 5 days. If you’ve already cooked them and have too many you can store them for later reheating (add a little extra liquid to the pan) in the fridge.

Is fermented oatmeal good for you?

Yes! Soaking and fermenting these oats makes them easier to digest and much more nutritious. They are especially nutrient dense if you add in a traditional fat – butter, cream or olive oil when you serve them.

I’ve got left over fermented oats, what can I do with them?

• You can eat them the next day for breakfast. Reheat them with a little extra liquid before serving.
• If you make bread, add in some leftover cooked fermented oats into your dough to bring more softness to the resulting bread’s crumb.
• You can use them as a non-dairy soup thickener.
• You can mix them with any type of flour and shape them into patties before frying.

I love fermented oats! What else can I make with them?

Fermented oats can be used for so many other things. Check out my recipe for fermented oat bake here – I’ve created a savoury version, but you could do the same with dried fruit and spices making it sweet.

You may also like these articles:

The Lowdown on Oats and Phytic Acid

How to Roll Oats at Home (& 3 Good Reasons to Do It!)

Fermented Oat Bake Recipe

Naturally-Fermented Staffordshire Oatcakes Recipe

I also have a free Zoom training that talks about many different ways of fermenting oats and how you can use them in your kitchen. Watch Fermenting Oats here. 

You’d be wrong.

Yes, the Scottish have been eating porridge for over a thousand years. But no, they didn’t use rolled oats.

Why didn’t the Scottish use rolled oats for their porridge?

Rolled oats are a modern invention. They’ve only been around since 1877. That was the year a machine that rolled oat grains into flakes was invented. This machine very quickly fell into the hands of what would become the Quaker oat company. Back then, Americans didn’t eat oats and in addition, breakfast cereals weren’t a ‘thing’.

The technique of rolling made the oats both more visually appealing and easier to cook and the Quaker company saw an opportunity. They registered the first trademark for a breakfast cereal (which they called oatmeal). The trademark included the name Quaker (chosen as a symbol of good quality and honest value) and the traditionally-dressed figure that we still see on Quaker oat packets today.

Quaker then went on, in 1882, to launch a ground-breaking marketing campaign that included running the first ever national magazine adverts for a breakfast cereal and delivering free trial-size samples of Quaker oats door-to-door.

It was a hit. Rolled oats were taken to heart by the US population and have been a staple at breakfast tables ever since. Quaker were (and still are) the leading manufacturer of oats (and their oat marketing campaign obviously paid off economically as they were bought by Pepsi in 2001 for $14 billion!)

But back to the Scots: If they’ve been eating porridge for over a thousand years, but rolled oats have only been around one hundred and fifty years, what did they do before?

To understand this, we need to dive briefly into oat history.

When our ancestors first discovered that oats were good to eat, they would have ground the grains between two stones to make a rudimentary flour. Later, in the Neolithic era (4,500-2,500 BCE) this technology was developed into the rotary quern. Two people, generally women, would work the quern, turning the handle manually. It was hard work (so much so that a recent study by Cambridge University has shown that Neolithic women had arm muscles 16% stronger than current Olympic rowers). The concentrated carbohydrate provided by the grain was obviously worth the effort!

Later still, stone mills were developed, and in oat-growing areas of Scotland (and England), these were often built alongside kilns so that the oats could be both toasted and ground efficiently.

The Scots ate these stone-ground oats – oat groats transformed into meal by manual grinding. In the UK, this type of oats is called oatmeal. Oatmeal was used to make porridge and oaten breads (plus all the other oat goodies that I hope to highlight in my forthcoming book).

Oatmeal comes in three grades: fine, medium and coarse. Traditionally, different dishes call for different types.

Here is fine oatmeal:

Here is medium oatmeal:

Differing definitions of the word oatmeal

I am from the UK and four years ago I started a podcast with an American. Pretty soon it became clear to me that the word oatmeal means one thing to people from the UK and another thing to Americans. Let’s clear that up.

In the US:

Oatmeal = oats (usually rolled) cooked with water/milk into a thick, soupy, warm dish.

In the UK:

Oatmeal = whole oats that have been stone-ground into a meal. These come in fine, medium and coarse grades. When oatmeal is (or in fact rolled oats are) cooked with water/milk into a thick, soupy, warm dish, it’s called porridge.

These days, even in areas where once whole communities only survived because of oatmeal, it is very hard to buy it on an English shopping street. Quaker has done such a good job of marketing rolled oats to the world that one might be mistaken in thinking that, along with oat-eating, rolled oats have been around for thousands of years.

But as Mornflake, a miller of oats in Cheshire, UK, since 1675 says on their website “Any serious porridge traditionalist will tell you that [porridge] should always be made with oatmeal. At the World Porridge-Making Championship you’d be turned away at the door with rolled oats!”

How will my porridge/oatmeal differ if I use oatmeal instead of porridge oats?

I’ve made porridge with both medium-grade oatmeal and rolled oats. The oatmeal version takes longer to cook, absorbs more water and has a more gritty texture than the rolled oats version. I like to make and serve it as the Scots did – cooked with plain water, a little salt added just before it’s done and then eaten with a small bowl of cream on the side to dip each spoonful into!

Want to try making your oatmeal/porridge the traditional Scottish way? With stone-ground oatmeal instead of rolled oats?

I’d suggest trying medium grade oatmeal.

If you are in the UK, you can find oatmeal through online suppliers relatively easily.

If you’re in the US, it takes a little more online work but, when I tried, a brief search threw up at least one supplier.

If you give it a go, next time you’re stirring the porridge pot ready for breakfast you’ll know that you’re truly stepping into the shoes of your Scottish ancestors and extending a tradition that’s been around for thousands of years, not one created one hundred and fifty years ago.

P.s If you love oats, you might like my course on the traditional Scottish oat ferment, sowans. Have a look by clicking on the picture below: