I tried each tip to stop oat explosions – here is what worked

Once the cold in the fall sets in, I instinctively want my day with a smoking bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and a net of a good maple syrup. It is healthy, filling, constantly customizable and takes almost no effort to make. But as much as I like, oats often has a way of transforming my accelerated morning routine into a sticky disaster. More times I cannot count, I threw a bowl in the microwave to cook – or simply warm up – to come back to find a glué geyser broke out everywhere in the platinum, sink on the sides and stay in every corner. So much for my “fast breakfast”.

I know that I am not alone in this scenario. Whether you cook oats slowly on the stove or exploded them in the microwave, oatmeal seems only that has been started to bubble and make a mess. It’s not just bad luck – there is a fascinating science behind it. The good news is that once you understand what is going on in this pot or this bowl, the fix is ​​quite simple.

Why does oat flour are burning?

To find out how to avoid the dreaded boil of oat flour, we must first understand why it happens. When you boil ordinary water, physics is simple: heat creates steam bubbles at the bottom of the pot, which rise, break the surface and release their steam. It is a constant cycle of training and bubble jumps that keeps water to simmer happily.

But oatmeal is not only water. Once you add oats, you add starch and starch changes the equation. As the oats heated, their starchs absorb water, swell and collapse, releasing the molecules of amyloidosis and amylopectin in the cooking fluid. These carbohydrate polymers create a loose but sticky mesh which transforms the liquid into something thicker than water – a frost. As Harold McGee explains in his book of seminal food sciences On food and cookingStarch granules gelatin in hot water, swelling until they burst and release molecules that fit together.

Here is where the problem begins. Water (or milk, or whatever the liquid with which you cook) always tries to do what the water does when it boils: form steam bubbles that go up and go out. But now, instead of exploding properly on the surface, the bubbles are caught in this starchy frost. The thicker the liquid, the more difficult it is to escape from steam. Instead of dispersing, the bubbles accumulate under the surface, pushing the oat flour higher and higher.

In oat flour, this gelatinized starch network acts as a balloon, keeping the bubbles intact rather than letting them appear. The more the starch nets bubbles, the more and more frothy the oatmeal, until the whole mass suddenly rises up. This is why oat flour seems perfectly calm for a second, then, in an instant, it bursts like a volcano.

The “solutions” tested (and stranded)

Once I understood why the oat flour is boiling, I wanted to see if I could thwart the starchs. A quick analysis of cooking books, Reddit forums and readers’ comments revealed some popular “corrective”. Some of them seem plausible and even supported by science, but when I tested these methods below, none resisted the oat volcano. I tested these methods in the microwave and on the cook, and here is what I found.

Adding fat (like butter): This one makes sense in theory. The fats are hydrophobic, so if you disperse the fats in your gruel, the fat molecules cover the swollen starch granules. This coating interferes with the starch network, weakening the frost, so steam bubbles should be able to pass and burst rather than trap. Keywords are theoretically.

For it to work, the fat cannot just sit on the top – it must be stirred thoroughly so that it covers the starchs. And then there is the question of the amount of fat to use. I tested it systematically with a portion of half a cup of oat in the microwave in full power, adding a tablespoon of butter, then two, then three, and finally four. (I chose butter because it is the fat that I would really like to eat in my gruel, even if it is only about 80% fat compared to 100% in oils.)

The results were that a tablespoon did nothing – oat flour had always jumped. Two tablespoons delayed the Boilver a little, but did not stop it. With three tablespoons, I finally saw a full cook without getting rid of. Four tablespoons also worked, but at that time, my “bowl of oatmeal” began to have a taste of oat flour-delicious in its own way, but barely a practical solution for daily breakfast.

It should be noted that if I use oil instead of butter, I may have a little less, because the oil is 100% fatty. But realistically, I do not reach a quarter of olive oil to stir in my morning crash. Butter, cream and milk are the fatty ingredients that most people really want here – and in daily quantity, they will not prevent boilers.

Place a baguette or spoon on the pot or bowl: Another commonly shared tip is to rest a utensil through the ship, supposed to burst the bubbles before spreading. In my microwave tests, it made no difference. The bubbles climbed around him and continued to foam until the grease broke out.

Adding dried fruit or nuts from the start: Some Reddit users have suggested that mixtures could interfere with the starch network, but I was unlucky with that. Similar to what happened with the spoon test, the starch has simply formed around the fruit and nuts, and the eaten flour still.

All these “hacks” may seem promising, but in practice, they did not keep oat flour in the bowl where it belonged, or in the case of fat, it worked, but left oat flour in a richness.

The practical fixes that actually work to keep your oatmeal in checking the most effective solutions have proven to be the simplest, and they differ depending on whether you cook on the stove or in the microwave.

On the cook

When stir the oatmeal while it cooks, you physically break the bubbles before you can swell and overturn. Even some agitations during cooking, especially as oatmeal is getting closer – make a big difference. This is why most of the oat flour’s eating recipes call for occasional bustle. He disrupts the starch network enough to let the steam escape without sending the oats on the edge of the pan.

Equally important is the heat level: keep the pot to simmer slowly rather than a boiling. The lower heat means that bubbles are more slowly and less aggressively, which gives you even more control. Use at least one 1 quarter pan for half a cup of dry oat to make sure there is a lot of head space. Together, the lower heat and the occasional agitation also help prevent the torrids at the bottom of the pot, keeping the creamy oats and cooked uniformly.

Microwave

The microwave is more delicate, because you do not hold there with a spoon. Here, the solution concerns less the intervention and more on prevention. Start with a large wide bowl. This gives the oatmeal more surface to allow the vapor to escape, and the vertical head space means that it has room to get up in the bowl. As a general directive, for each half-dry oat half, use at least one three cup bowl in the microwave.

In my tests, I also found that the microwave has a lower power adjustment – 50% – actually effective. The lower temperature means that oat flour cooks more slowly, so that bubbles are less vigorously formed, which makes them less likely to be trapped under the starch gel. With intermittent agitation and a vigilant eye, I did not live the dramatic boilers that occur at full power. The warning is that the “low” power is not consistent on all microwaves, so although it is not a perfect control on which I can give you a final horoditing, cooking to a lower power will reliably reduce your risk of spill.

Summary: 5 tips to prevent boiling oatmeal

• Do not fill your pot or your bowl. The more space above oat, the more room you have before overflowing.
• Use a large ship. The bowls and the pots with a top allow the steam to escape more easily than a high and narrow cup.
• Keep an eye on the timing. Boilers tend to suddenly occur towards the end of cooking, whether you are in the stove or use the microwave. If your microwave, take a break and check halfway; If you are on the cook, do not move away in the last minutes.
• Stir from time to time. The agitation disturbs the starch network and breaks the bubbles before inflating in a large push. On the cook, stir from time to time while oats simmer; In the microwave, a break to stir every minute or two maintains the quieter oat flour.
• Save the butter for flavor, not on prevention. A small tape at the end adds wealth, but don’t expect it to save you from the cleaning service.

The point to take away

Oat flour ends because the starch network traps the bubbles until they burst. I would like to be able to tell you that there is an intelligent tip or a viral piracy that works magic here, but the truth is more practical: the addition of fat or balance a spoon through the pot will not help much, while some simple fixes do it. Stir your oats while they cook on the stove (or every minute or two in the microwave), watch your heat level and always use a larger pot or bowl with a lot of head space. These fast adjustments mean that your oat stay remains, your microwave remains clean and that your morning routine remains fast.