History of Oat Flour

Oat flour is known to many people but I literally just realized that many people  may not know a few things about the origin of oats. So here it goes! For a long time, oats have been on the back burner of nutrition, farmers were the first to discover the nutritional value of oats as feeds for animals that contain a high volume of fiber. Its high nutritional value and relatively low agricultural value makes it unique among other cereal crops.

Oats botanically called Avena sativais is believed to have been derived from two major species. The wild red oats Avena sterilis and the common wild oats Avena fatua. This plant may have originated in Asia minor though it is now most extensively grown in Europe. Oats is adaptive of a wide range of soil types but less tolerant of climatic variation.

This plant is grown best in a cool, humid climate in the temperate zone and is less resis­tant to cold or heat than any other cereal plant like wheat or barley. It is thus not found in the tropics and sub-tropics of Africa, Asia or South America where the climate is both damp and hot. Its cultivation is also insignificant in the hot­ter parts of the sunny Mediterranean lands and in the colder parts of the temperate north. It can survive in very poor soils, such as peaty moorlands, where other cereals will not grow.

Oats is generally a spring-sown crop, especially in rotation with wheat or rye. It fits perfectly well into the farm activities of the Corn Belt of the U.S.A. where it is usually sown in early spring before the cultivation of corn, or grown with clover or al­falfa because It extracts very little nitrogen from the soil. Oats, like maize and barley, are great for human consumption.

Oat Flour Description

The oat is a cereal grain grown for its seed. It is light with a neutral flavor which is very suitable for human consumption as oatmeal, oat flour and oat milk. It can also be used for a plethora of other things. Oats are associated with lower blood cholesterol when consumed regularly

The Types of Oats

1.     Whole Oat Groats

A groat is another name for a grain kernel. Whole oat groats are the result of simply harvesting oats, cleaning them, and removing their inedible hulls. You can most often find these in health food stores. They take the longest to cook.

2.     Steel Cut Oats

If you cut groats into two or three pieces with a sharp metal blade, you get steel cut oats. They cook quicker than oat groats, because water can more easily penetrate the smaller pieces. Steel cut oats are also sometimes called Irish oatmeal. 

3.     Scottish Oatmeal

Instead of cutting oats with a steel blade, the Scots traditionally stone-grind them, creating broken bits of varying sizes, which some say results in a creamier porridge than steel-cutting.

4.     Rolled Oats or regular (old fashioned)

Rolled oats (sometimes called old fashioned oats) are created when oat groats are steamed and then rolled into flakes. This process stabilizes the healthy oils in the oats, so they stay fresh longer, and helps the oats cook faster, by creating a greater surface area.

5.     Rolled Oat or quick instant

If you roll the oat flakes thinner, and/or steam them longer, you create quick oats and ultimately instant oats. The nutrition stays the same (these are all whole grains) but the texture changes – a plus for some people and a drawback for others. The good thing about having so many choices is that everyone can get exactly the taste they like best!

Oat Flour

In 2004 the AACCI (American Association of Cereal Chemists International) provided a definition for whole oat flour as: “Flour produced from clean, 100% groats, or from products derived without material loss from whole groats, by stabilizing and size reduction” (Webster & Wood, 2011). Oat flour may be considered a by-product of oat bran production or a composite of the sifting loss.

Oat Flour is also a gluten-free form of whole grain flour made from grinding rolled oats into a powder. It is organic, gluten free, non GMO with no other additives.

Oat Four is a preferred type of flour for baking as it adds tenderness and savory to food. Oat flour can be used as ready-made cereal for children, instant breakfast cereal or for thickening soups and stews.

Manufacturing of Oat Flour:

　　1. Cleaning: The oat is cleaned after harvesting, then sieved to remove stones twice, followed by magnetic separation and cutting. The final stage of the cleaning process is auxiliary wind cleaning.

　　2. Oat peeling and baking: This process uses two vertical emery roll peeling machines and two vertical iron roll peeling machines to peel the oats completely. After peeling, the oat is then directly packaged or transferred into the bakery section for curing. The cooked oat can be packaged and the uncooked oat can be conveyed to the flour milling section for oat flour milling.

　　3. Flour milling and blending:

　　Both oat uncooked oat and cooked oat can be conveyed to the milling section and then milled by a fine powder machine. Oat flour and cooked oat flour is obtained.

　　4. Products and by-products packaging:

　　Different packing methods for end products and by-products: oats rice and oat flour adopts Electronic quantitative packing machine to package due to large yield, while impurities and dust adopts machinery packing cabinet to package considering from the yield and products features.