nairn's Oat Miller - John Hogarth
The summer time is harvesting time and the most important time of year for John Hogarth. It’s this period where most of the harvested oats are secured and purchased for the mill. Hogarth’s location in Kelso has been valuable as it is surrounded by the fertile land of the Tweed River basin where many Border farmers have grown and sold their oats to the local mill for generations.
At harvest time samples are taken from the local farms to the mill to test their suitability for milling. The qualities of the oats are key to baking the perfect oatcake, so the oats must be bright and golden in colour, plump and sweet smelling. The moisture within the oats is also tested to confirm that they have been correctly dried and stored.
Once Hogarth’s have conducted all its tests and are happy with the samples, they will then purchase the oats from the local farmers. The farmers will then store the reserved oat stock until Hogarth’s are ready to collect them. When the oats are collected and arrive at the mill they are meticulously checked again to make sure they are still of a quality standard. Hogarth’s always know which farm its oats have come from a very important factor. Once the load has been cleared it is tipped into a storage bin and from there it starts the milling process. Initially the grains are cleaned to pick out any small amounts of weed seeds and straw. The oats are then steamed, kilned and cooled to bring out the flavour of the oat before they are shelled (de-hulled) to take off the husk. Finally, the groats (shelled oats) are colour sorted before they enter the last stage of the milling process where they are cut and either rolled to produce oat flakes or stone ground to produce the different grades of coarse, medium and fine pinhead oatmeal. When the milling process is completed, the various grades of oatmeal are tested against nairn’s specification to check they are suitable to be delivered.
nairn's have a longstanding relationship with John Hogarth and we have been sourcing our oats from them since 1978.
