Oats can be soaked to make them easier to digest. Oats can also be soaked longer and fermented to make them even easier to digest. Oatmeal cooked from oats are not soaked or fermented can cause digestive issues.
This page details how to ferment oats and make oatmeal. The whole process is extremely easy.
Page Contents
Some History of Soaking Oats
I forget where I read this, but, long ago, Quaker oatmeal products had cooking instructions that included soaking the oats in water overnight (at room temperature, not in the fridge), before cooking. Soaking the oats, then cooking them, was a traditional preparation technique for oatmeal, as it makes the oatmeal more digestible. However, many consumers did not want the inconvenience of soaking oats for hours before being able to make oatmeal, so Quaker removed the soaking from the cooking instructions.
This is a case of people favoring convenience and ignoring the knowledge of our past – the knowledge that oats should be soaked before cooking. The current trend of making “overnight oats” by soaking oats in the fridge overnight simply allows the oats to absorb water, and does not have a significant effect on digestibility.
Starting a Batch
| Item or ingredient | Amount per 1 cup oats or porridge | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Oats or porridge mix | 1 cup | I have fermented rolled oats, steel cut oats, and quick oats. They all work and can be interchanged and mixed. Any other porridge grain should work just fine. The grains should be cracked, rolled, or cut so the inner starches are available to microbes for fermenting. |
| Filtered water | 2 cups | The water should have no chlorine or chloramine, as this weakens or kills microbes. Activated carbon filters like Brita filters remove these chemicals. |
| Glass container | N/A | This is the fermenting vessel. I use a 1 quart glass mason jar. |
| Starter or acidic liquid | 1 tablespoon | Either of these will help remove phytates from the oats. Phytates are antinutrients that impair our digestive system’s ability to absorb some minerals. A starter will kickstart fermentation and will make the final oatmeal product more sour. |
- Combine oats, water, and starter or acidic liquid in glass container. Make sure the liquid covers all of the oats.
- Let the mixture sit at room temperature for at least 24 hours.
- Now the oats are properly soaked or fermented, and ready for cooking.
Choosing a Starter or Acidic Liquid
Good options:
- Sourdough starter
- Sauerkraut juice or juice from any fermented vegetable
- This should be a live ferment with microbes – not the dead saurkraut in jars at some grocery stores.
- Yogurt or any cultured dairy product
- Milk kefir works well.
- Apple cider vinegar, preferably raw
- Bragg Raw Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar is perfect and can be found at any natural foods store. I started my first batch using this.
- Lemon juice
Cooking
Fermented and soaked oats cook quicker than dry oats, probably because soaking breaks the oats down and makes them softer. They can be cooked just like any oats.
I cook oats using the following procedure:
- Add oats to cooking pot.
- Do not use all oats from the glass container, in case you want to make make another batch soon using the perpetual porridge method.
- Add water to cooking pot so oats are covered by 1-2 inches of water.
- Add a pinch of salt.
- Bring pot to boil.
- Lower heat to low to simmer until oats are well-cooked and soft.
- This usually takes about 5 minutes.
Eating
This oatmeal does not taste the same as other oatmeal. This oatmeal’s taste can be sour. The longer it soaks or ferments, the more sour it will be. The taste is not for everybody.
I like eating my oatmeal with a lot of grass-fed butter and usually some kind of fermented vegetable like sauerkraut. This makes the meal very savory. I personally can’t add sugar to my oatmeal, because sweet oatmeal just tastes gross to me.
I probably eat around \(\frac{1}{4}\) to \(\frac{1}{2}\) cup of oats when I make oatmeal.
Perpetual Porridge
This idea comes from the book Traditionally Fermented Foods by Shannon Stonger.
I use this method for fermenting oats. This method is called perpetual porridge because we keep one batch of oats fermenting perpetually in a jar by cooking with some oats and replacing these used oats with fresh oats for the batch. If you are familiar with maintaining a sourdough starter, this is basically the same method.
Rules:
- When ready to cook oatmeal, leave at least 20% of the oats in the glass container.
- These leftover oats have microbes in them. It will kickstart fermentation for any new oats added.
- Add oats to the glass container. Add enough filtered water to cover the oats again.
- Let oats ferment for at least 12 hours before cooking.
- This gives the microbes time to fermente the oats.
- The longer it ferments, the more sour it gets.
- The batch can be left to ferment for a long time before using.
- I have left my batch unattended at room temperature for a week, then cooked with it, and continued the batch. The oatmeal was especially sour after a week of fermenting, and my batch had no issues. It continued to ferment the new oats I added.
- We can leave the batch in the fridge if we will not use it for a long time.
For example, let’s say I have a jar with 1 cup of oats fermenting. When I get hungry, I will use some oats and leave maybe \(\frac{1}{4}\) cup of oats in the jar. Then, I will add \(\frac{3}{4}\) cup of oats to the jar, with sufficient filtered water to cover the oats. I will let these new oats ferment in the jar for at least 12 hours before using them again, so that they are all nice and fermented before cooking.