Background and objectives
Sprouted grain products meet consumer demands for foods with clean label ingredient statements and plant‐based origins. The purpose of this study was to optimize oat cultivar, sprouting time and temperature, and preservation technique to produce a sprouted oat powder ingredient that could be stored and later added to oat flour to produce a sweetened paste for use in creating cereal bars and other products.
Findings
During sprouting at 16°C, Paul cv., GMI 423 cv., Souris cv. and Horsepower cv. oats had higher alpha‐amylase activity than the other 10 cultivars evaluated. During 4‐week ambient storage, Paul decreased in alpha‐amylase activity for both oven‐dried and freeze‐dried samples, whereas Horsepower remained constant, with freeze‐drying being the superior preservation method. Optimal temperature for sugar production in a slurry of sprouted Horsepower oats, oat flour, and water heated for up to 6 hr was 55°C.
Conclusions
Horsepower cv. oats, sprouted for 120 hr at 24°C, can be freeze‐dried and stored up to 4 weeks without a decrease in alpha‐amylase activity. Subsequent addition of this enhanced amylase powder to oat flour increased sugar production.
Significance and novelty
Oat products containing sprouted oat powder have the market advantage of a simpler ingredient list, being sweetened with sugars hydrolyzed from oat starch using endogenous oat enzymes. The potential for using endogenous enzymes in oats to produce a clean label oat sweetener has not been reported in the literature.