WARNING: this is probably not a post for beginners.
All this would have freaked me out early on. If you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, just head over to the Rookie Tips and implement one at a time as you can. You can come back to this later. Remember, it’s all a process! I know I say that a lot, but I remember how it felt early in my journey toward healthier eating, and I want those readers to know they are not alone! Just think – I’ve been a freak about what we eat for almost 5 years, and I’m JUST now sprouting grains for the first time… But if you’ve been at all this a while, or if you’re just curious, keep reading…
Part 1: Today I’ll cover WHY you may want to sprout your grains (it’s worth it!)
Part 2: Next you can read about HOW to sprout your grains (It’s an easy process, but if you still don’t feel like it, here’s where you can buy sprouted flour. Note: I’ll be paid a small amount per click if you buy through this link, and I thank you!)
See the cute little baby sprouts?
Why should I mess with sprouting grains?
A previous post explained why properly preparing your grains by soaking or fermenting is so important. But what can you do when you haven’t thought ahead to soak your grains (happens to me often) and you need flour for various last minute recipes, or for those recipes that don’t come out well with soaking? In those cases you can sprout your grains, then grind into flour to have on hand – I keep it in the freezer so it retains more nutrients, and try not to grind too much at once. Or you can buy sprouted grain flour, but it’s very expensive – it’s much more economical to do it yourself, and it won’t take long to recover the cost of a quality grain mill.
Why are sprouted grains healthier?
There are some great explanations on the web about why sprouting grains is so beneficial, here is a good excerpt:
Sprouting radically changes grains by:
- Changing the composition of starch molecules, converting them into vegetable sugars, so the body recognizes and digests sprouted grains as a vegetable.
- Enzymes are created that aid digestion, complex sugars are broken down which can eliminate painful gas, and vitamin and mineral levels increase.
- Sprouting neutralizes potent carcinogens and enzyme inhibitors, as well as an acid that inhibits absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc.
Just learning all that was enough for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you sprout your grains? Do you think it’s easier to sprout your grains or soak your grains?
Now jump over and read about HOW to sprout your grains.
- Pancake/waffle recipe using sprouted grains
- Experimenting with 100% whole grain recipes – blender batter pancakes (this is one of those recipes you do need to think ahead for)
- Check out the update to this Crème Brule recipe – I simplified it big time!
- I also simplified my cinnamon roll recipe
- Making 6 loaves of bread AT ONCE in my Bosch
- Why cod liver oil & coconut are SO beneficial in our diets!
- Find out how all these readers use coconut oil
- 4 tiny tips for beginning runners
- Many more topics & recipes along the right in the sidebar
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Erica 11.24.08 at 7:17 am
I’m still a soaker, it’s worked out good so far. All in due time
We try eating as few grains as possible in the first place but sooner or later, I will try sprouting
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green mom for Jesus 11.24.08 at 9:14 am
I can’t wait to try this!
Do you have to have a grain mill to grind up or can I use something else less expensive?
It’s great to be a food geek, isn’t it?
Praise Jesus for His work in you sharing good nutrition with everyone!
Peace,
Amy
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Kelly the Kitchen Kop 11.24.08 at 7:00 pm
Hi Erica,
I’m impressed with your relaxed attitude – I need more of that. No rush if soaking is working well.
Amy,
I don’t know the answer to that, but I don’t think so. Anyone else know? I THINK in small amounts you could use a coffee grinder, but I’m not sure. Or just borrow my grain mill!
Kel
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Andrea 11.24.08 at 7:27 pm
Hello! Thank you for the post! Now I know what I have been doing wrong in my attempts to sprout! Also, we have a nutrimill, and I had been wondering if you could grind sprouted wheat if you dehydrated it enough…now I know!
I do have a question about using sprouted flour, though: We weigh out our flour for all our recipes (4 oz for a cup of soft white, and 5 oz for a cup or hard red), I don’t know if you use a food scale or not, but if you do, do you notice a difference in the weight of a cup of flour after soaking and dehydrating?Do you notice any differences at all in cooking bread? If you make homemade noodles with it, do they last as long in the cupboard or would you have to make them up right before using?
Thank you for the great info!
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Kelly the Kitchen Kop 11.24.08 at 9:17 pm
Geesh, Andrea, I think you’re way ahead of me in the sprouting game!
-No, I don’t weigh it out, but I probably should, as I can see me bombing a few recipes down the road otherwise.
-Haven’t tried it with homemade bread yet (I’m soaking hard wheat berries now for that), but I made pancakes the other day with sprouted flour and they were great! No changes to my normal recipe, which I’m posting tomorrow…
-Haven’t made noodles yet, GIRL, you’re good.
Kelly
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stephanie 02.06.09 at 12:48 pm
Hello! I have just started sprouting grain, but I did read that you could use a coffee grinder (much cheaper!) to process your dehydrated grain into flour. I did my first batch of wheat and put a small amount into the coffee grinder and it worked perfectly. I only did a small amount because I want to wait until I am ready to make the bread before I grind it, but it looks like it could do about a cup at a time. So now I have about a tablespoon of my first sprouted grain flour in my freezer. *cheers for the weirdos!*
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Ginny 05.16.09 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for the great sprouting info! I’m currently eating about 75% raw food and I love to sprout. But I also love to make bread, so I’m going to follow your sprout/dry/grind/bake process.
Isn’t sprouting a magical process. Starting with a few seeds and ending up with a jar-full of incredibly delicious little baby plants. Watching your pennies is always important, but even more so these days. And sprouting is a great way to get the most from your food dollars, both financially and nutritionally. Thanks, Ginny
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Joy 06.15.09 at 3:37 pm
Do you sprout your grains and legumes in water with whey added? If so, what is the ratio of whey to water?
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Joy 06.15.09 at 5:36 pm
Just saw that it’s usually a 2c./4tbsp. ratio. Does the ratio change with different legumes?
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Kelly 06.19.09 at 10:45 am
Hi Joy,
I don’t use whey at all when sprouting, I just get them wet overnight, then drain, wet again, drain, etc. throughout the day. Keeping them moist is what makes them sprout.
Where did you see that about using whey?
Kelly
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Marci 07.23.09 at 12:47 am
Hey Kelly,
Well, I guess I’m now an official weirdo too! And then, being the freight train that I am, I went from making “No-Knead” artisan bread last year (ciabatta made in a fish poaching pan is my speciality) to purchasing a Bosch Universal mixer (cherry red on ebay, baby!), sprouting my own wheat berries and baking sandwich bread all within the past 2 weeks!
First attempt: I used Marilyn’s recipe (UrbanHomemaker) for sandwich bread and soaked the flour in whey. The texture was OK, maybe a little gummy, but the sour taste was rejected by all. Not even toasting and thick slabs of dairy fresh butter could mask the horribleness! 3 loaves straight into the trash.
Second attempt: I used white and red berries (50/50) which had been lovingly sprouted, carefully dried and ground into flour to make my tried and true No-Knead ciabatta bread. I had to use quite a bit more yeast to get any action in the first rising and even then, it still came out as flat as a flounder…super sweet and yummy tasting but you couldn’t really call it “bread.” Ate half of it anyway.
Third attempt: I used your soaked recipe (adapted from Shauna’s) and changed as follows…I used butter instead of coconut oil (less expensive) and I used 2 eggs. I soaked 4 C. of whole weat flour in kefir and water overnight as directed. Before baking, I added the 3 C. white flour and used 1.5 C. of my sprouted wheat flour for the spelt or alternate grain. (My thought was that soaking sprouted wheat flour would be redundant, no?) In any event, it turned out great! I like that the bread is soft but it still seems to be a little on the gummy side – like small wads of it would make great ammo in a lunchroom. We have devoured 2 loaves – must make more soon.
Question: Has anyone successfully made a yeast bread using 50% or more sprouted wheat flour? I do not find the sprouting/drying/grinding process too laborious – I’ve just heard that it is difficult to make yeast breads using flour from sprouted wheat.
P.S. Banana bread made with 50/50 sprouted wheat flour/white flour was also delicious.
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Kelly 07.24.09 at 7:15 pm
Marci, such great scoop, I’ll try my recipe with your adaptations next time.
Thanks!
Kelly p.s. Youza, girl, you’re really going for it! p.s.s. Yes, soaking sprouted flour is very redundant.
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Gramoni 09.02.09 at 11:30 am
I have always had the same problems with sprouted wheatberries that Marci describes above. I know Sally Fallon says you can do the necessary soaking in the berry stage (before grinding)instead of the flour stage , but how does she (or anybody)figure that soaking the berry WON’T turn it into bulgar, which everyone knows is useable only as a cooked grain or ground as an additive to white flour recipes? What does the soaking do to the wheat to keep it from rising? Sprouting grain ahead of time is much more time-economical, I think, but it simply has never worked for me in making anything baked that I wanted to RISE with either yeast, baking powder, or baking soda. Has anyone had success with rising? What am I doing wrong? Only thing I can think of is that there is a magic number of hours, beyond which the grain becomes so saturated it loses its “riseability.” And that is really ignorant speculation…
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KitchenKop 09.02.09 at 4:29 pm
Gramoni,
I haven’t had trouble with this but probably because (sadly), I’m still at about a 50/50 ratio of white flour to sprouted flour in my recipes, just to keep it tasty enough to get by the family. (Depends on the recipe, and in some things I get more whole wheat in.)
Maybe someone else can share their experiences with sprouted flour?
Kelly
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KitchenKop 09.02.09 at 5:05 pm
I just remembered an email exchange I had recently from Jenny at Nourished Kitchen:
“Hey Kelly -
You’ll know if your grains have been malted because they’ll give off an almost roasted smell after drying. They also tend to be much darker and more brittle than regular grain with an appearance that borders on the shriveled. I should send a pic of malted grain vs. regular sprouted grain.
If you bake with malted grain (aside from a tablespoon or two), the bread will be sweet and gummy and won’t rise well. No matter how long you seem to cook it, it will never seemed cooked through. I’ve made the mistake more than once! The good news is that malt can make a FANTASTIC dough enhancer and can contribute a beautiful dark brown color to your finished loaf so if you’ve gone and malted your grain, go ahead and grind it. But set it aside and use it very sparingly (1-2 tbs per loaf).
Take care -
Jenny”
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Musings of a Housewife 09.03.09 at 10:08 pm
Yeah. I’m officially overwhelmed. So where does grinding your wheat come in? And can I soak the wheat for my homemade bread to make it absorb better? I need to check out your bread recipe again, I guess.
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KitchenKop 09.03.09 at 10:17 pm
Jo-Lynne,
Don’t worry, it’s a lot to wrap your brain around!
You sprout your whole grains the way it’s described in part 2, then dry them well, and THEN you grind them into flour. Now you have sprouted flour on hand for last-minute recipes! The homemade bread recipe you are referring to is one that I start the night before with UNsprouted flour. (Since I don’t always have sprouted flour on hand.)
Kelly
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