Gorats: how much will we need for a wedding circle

[C.k.]

This is a serious question. Really.
For my best friends wedding they want to do a circle of groats at the ceremony, but have no idea how much we will need. (We've researched groats, and are pretty much decided on using rye seed, but have not bought anything yet.)
Wedding is soon. Feedback and formulas welcome!

[Starthrower50]

My understanding is groats and oatmeal are much the same. From the description in the book, they were in the pantry as a cereal (and I don't see rye seed making a good breakfast.) If that's the case (and it seems to me I've seen them compared to oatmeal elsewhere as well) it will depend on how large the wedding circle is to be and how deep you want the groats/oatmeal. I would think 3-4 of the tall, round Quaker Oats cardboard boxes would make a 2 meter circle, although 3 meters would be better if it's to include the bride, groom, witnesses and minister/whoever is to perform the ceremony. You should be able to rough out how far one carton will go for the ideal thickness and depth, and calculate how much you'll need for your desired size circle from there.

You may have to look around a bit to find plain oats now. They're usually packaged in single serving bags with sugar and spices added now, but I'm all but sure there are still purists out there who want the unadulterated oats, so you can probably still get them. If your friends can't, tell them to contact customer service for Quaker Oats. They might be interested enough in the publicity to provide it to them for free. :-)

[Starthrower50]

As I said in my earlier comment, I believe groats are much akin to oatmeal. I also thought I remembered seeing it elsewhere with this definition and Dictionary.com backs me up. Here is their definition:

groats [grohts]
noun ( used with a singular or plural verb )
1. hulled grain, as wheat or oats, broken into fragments.
2. hulled kernels of oats, buckwheat, or barley.

I suggested your friends contact Quaker Oats if they couldn't find pure oats for the wedding circle. Their online address is http://www.quakeroats.com (It's owned by Pepsico.) In looking at their advertising images, I see the tall, round, cardboard tub of pure oats is still pictured, so it's most likely still being sold.

[Sara]

Starthrower50 wrote: " I see the tall, round, cardboard tub of pure oats is still pictured, so it's most likely still being sold. "

I buy 42oz cardboard tubs from my supermarket (for making my own granola). I don't think they'd be very difficult to find.

Personally, I tended to picture grains that looked more like farina, because that seemed more Russian (I have a friend from Belarus who waxes poetic on her hatred of the stuff).

Whatever you decide to go with, you first need to figure out how big you need the circle to be. Maybe you could try doing a dry run using sand and go off that volume?

[Sara]

Ok, I like math so your request for formulas would not leave my mind! I see that you're Canadian, so I'll try to keep the measurements in metric when I can.

First, I took a measuring cup full of oatmeal and dumped it on a plate, making a rectangle. It measured approximately 10cm by 20cm, which means one cup of oatmeal covers an area 200cm square.



(You can see that I made it fairly deep.)

The next part depends on how big you want the circle to be. I'm having trouble coming up with a good estimate, because it's just me eyeballing it in my living room with an imperial tape measure. Starthrower50 suggested a circle with a diameter of 2m, so I'll take that. I have also unilaterally decided that 8cm would be a good width for the groat circle (for the purposes of this demonstration).

The area of your groat circle would be:

pi(r^2)-pi(r-w)^2

Where
r = 100cm (the measurement from the center of the circle to the outer edge of the groats)
w = 8cm (the width of the groat circle
pi = 3.14....

3.14*100^2-3.14*(100-8)^2 = 4823cm^2

The area of ground covered by our groats is 4,823cm^2. The area covered by one cup of groats is 200cm^2.

4823/200=24.115 cups

Round it up to 25, and that's 25 cups of groats to make a 2m circle.

If anyone sees any flaws/improvements to my reasoning, or if you have any adjustments to make to my figures, I'd be happy to redo this!