Where can I get steel cut oats in the uk?

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What's the difference? Scuse my ignorance, but I've never heard of steel cut Oats before.:confused:

The normal oats you will have seen have been steamed and 'rolled' (rolled oats), often having the bran removed. Steel cut are just the whole grains chopped up a bit. I use jumbo oats at the moment but just fancied giving these a go as they keep you fuller for longer and are marginally better for you! Un chopped oats just look like any other grain really but rolling them makes them easier to cook.
 

crosslandkelly

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Jun 9, 2009
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The normal oats you will have seen have been steamed and 'rolled' (rolled oats), often having the bran removed. Steel cut are just the whole grains chopped up a bit. I use jumbo oats at the moment but just fancied giving these a go as they keep you fuller for longer and are marginally better for you! Un chopped oats just look like any other grain really but rolling them makes them easier to cook.

Thanks for the info. I must give then a go.
 

digitracker

Full Member
Mar 29, 2012
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Search for pinhead oats or irish oats. I was brought up on them, best cooked the night before, tescos and sainsburys sell them, Flahavans is the brand name to look for sometimes hidden on the continental food shelf.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Oatmeal. Basic oatmeal; pinhead oats.

We can buy it commonly in three different grades, from fine (baby food texture when cooked as porridge and excellent flour for baking or making roast spuds, pinhead for ordinary porridge or oatcakes or coarse for rough oatcakes, skirlie or mealie puddings or soups.

Steel cut oats was simply the name for the damaged and debris oats from the dehusking to take off the seven layers of seed casing around the groats. It's just the stuff that isn't ground, but cut these days.

Oatmeal, pinhead meal.....it's available in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-op, etc.

cheers,
M
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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The normal oats you will have seen have been steamed and 'rolled' (rolled oats), often having the bran removed. Steel cut are just the whole grains chopped up a bit. I use jumbo oats at the moment but just fancied giving these a go as they keep you fuller for longer and are marginally better for you! Un chopped oats just look like any other grain really but rolling them makes them easier to cook.

"easier to cook" mostly meaning "quicker" to cook. Steel cut oats take longer for the water to steam through the exra bran layer. "slightly healthier" meaning more fiber from the that same extra bran layer.
 
Oatmeal. Basic oatmeal; pinhead oats.

We can buy it commonly in three different grades, from fine (baby food texture when cooked as porridge and excellent flour for baking or making roast spuds, pinhead for ordinary porridge or oatcakes or coarse for rough oatcakes, skirlie or mealie puddings or soups.

Steel cut oats was simply the name for the damaged and debris oats from the dehusking to take off the seven layers of seed casing around the groats. It's just the stuff that isn't ground, but cut these days.

Oatmeal, pinhead meal.....it's available in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-op, etc.

cheers,
M

Would it be called that then Toddy? I've seen jumbo irish oats but they were rolled.

Leo
 

Toddy

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It's simply pinhead meal.

The 'steel cut' bit used to simply be the process done to the oats that didn't crack and grind easily.

Now folks seem to want the extra bran, but then we now have good dentistry :)

'Steel cut', 'Irish', are terms the Americans are using and it's become an advertising thing. It's just pin head meal, or porage oats, but not rolled oats.

Rolled oats are ones that have been partially steamed and flattened. Like quick cook rice, sort of, since they've already been par cooked, they cook up really easily.

Type pinhead oats, and then steelcut oats, into something like wikipedia....they're pretty much the same thing.

Oatmeal comes in grades though from traditional mills, like the Mill of Alford. They supply four grades (mills used to grind for at least six different grades) fine, medium, rough and pinhead.
Pinhead or steelcut oats have a lot of the finer flour removed. They take a good overnight soak and then boiled up in the morning, or a long, long slow simmer.

That's why most of us who like oatmeal use the porage oats but not rolled oats. They've still got a lot of the flour in them and they cook more easily but still have the nutty oaty taste to them.

http://www.oatmealofalford.com/home.html

They make lovely oatmeal, but it's not cheap. The ordinary stuff from the supermarket works fine.
If they only have oatmeal, you can just sieve it for yourself; the flour makes really good bannocks :)

cheers,
Toddy
 

Toddy

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I've been reading up.

Modern machinery makes pinhead meal first, and then grinds that up to make the finer grades.

Sorry, the archaeology bit includes the older techniques of heating to swell the grain that lets the non nutritious husks come away and free the groat. Those groats were cracked and ground to the desired grades, from superfine to coarse.
Those that didn't crack were fed to animals when folks could afford to do so.\

Commercially now they do the heating bit, and that dries the oats, loosens the husks and stabilises the groat (that's just the wee kernal that makes the flour) so they last longer.
Then they cut them into pinhead meal, and then grind down for the finer grades.

So, pinhead meal is steelcut oats. :)

This is the stuff that our local Tesco sells
http://www.hamlynsoats.co.uk/products/hamlyns-pinhead-oatmeal/
 

robin wood

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Oct 29, 2007
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So what I occasionally get in oats is "the nutty oaty taste". I get it in oatcakes much more regularly which are vac packed in small batches, most oatmeal lacks much of the flavour that I know is possible. I am guessing that the flavour goes quite quickly once milled? that is certainly the case with wholemeal flour and was the reason you used to store wheat not flour. Flour bought off the supermarket has none of the flavour compared to that bought straight from the mill whilst it's still warm, store that flour a month and the flavour diminishes. Why don't they sell oats in sealed vac packs like they do ground coffee?
 

Toddy

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I think that's what they are aiming for now with the heating bit that stops the lipase going stale. In the past oats were milled as needed.

Tbh, I like my oats toasted, but it's a footer for most folks, so they don't bother.
Just roast them under the grill, or in a dry frying pan.

Rolled oats are baby food to me unless they've been sieved of their flour and toasted :)

Skirlie is calorie rich but tasty food.
Simply whatever fat was left from dinner melted in a pan, a finely sliced up onion fried in that and then oatmeal added and stirred until the oats swell. Seasoned with salt and pepper, it'll keep you going all day :D and it smells and tastes brilliant too :) Think a kind of couscous and it's sort of close.
You can do it by cooking the oats in butter that's had slice ransom bulbs fried in it too when you're out. Finely shred a couple of leaves and stir through at the last few moments.

I use non dairy marg or olive oil these days and it still works :D

:eek: Five past midnight and this thread is making me hungry :eek:

cheers,
Mary
 

Shewie

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Dec 15, 2005
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Skirlie is calorie rich but tasty food.
Simply whatever fat was left from dinner melted in a pan, a finely sliced up onion fried in that and then oatmeal added and stirred until the oats swell. Seasoned with salt and pepper, it'll keep you going all day :D and it smells and tastes brilliant too :) Think a kind of couscous and it's sort of close.
You can do it by cooking the oats in butter that's had slice ransom bulbs fried in it too when you're out. Finely shred a couple of leaves and stir through at the last few moments.

I use non dairy marg or olive oil these days and it still works :D

:eek: Five past midnight and this thread is making me hungry :eek:

cheers,
Mary

Me too :)

Sounds like a tasty snack Mary, I might have to try that one day
 

rik_uk3

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Jun 10, 2006
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Mealie beer :)

Only the last year or two I've started eating oats again but I do mess around and add things like dried fruit and banana; even better with sweetened condensed milk :)
 

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