Cleaning removes the unwanted materials – such as corn, soybeans, foreign material, weed seeds, wheat, or barley – from the milling quality oats.
The oats are brought at harvest into the mill by the growers. The miller only accepts oats that will yield flakes of satisfactory quality, and will attempt to maximise profits by estimating the potential yield and looking at the price of the oats and any possible added value obtainable. The oats then cleaned and dried so that they may be safely stored until they are needed. When the oats enter the mill, they pass under a magnetic separator to remove foreign metal objects, a very common practice in many food-processing operations.
The they are cleaned, taking off straws, stones and weed seeds and are then sent through a stream of air to remove any dust or light grains that would be unsuitable for milling.
This is followed by a dry stoner that removes high-density but similar-sized particles such as rocks and other grains, such as maize.
Even high quality oat grain will require cleaning to ensure that only sound oats are processed. The oats must appear wholesome and clean, must be free from extraneous material, with large and light coloured oats that give a high yield being preferred.
Oats
cleaning process
