Eating Healthier in Today's World

Using Wheat Sprouts in Your Bread

There is three different lengths of time to produce three very distinct kinds of sprouts.  They are not interchangable .  If the grain is spouted only a little, it can be ground into dough to make airy yeasted bread,.  Sprouted longer before grinding , it will make a dense, caky, loaf.  Sprouted still longer, until enzyme activity is at it's peak, the grain, ground and dried, becomes malt flour, or dimalt.

The crucial element here is the timing.  So much is going on so fast in those tiny powerhouses we call sprouting grains, that there is very little leeway for using them in the recipes:  one talent develops, peaks and fades, and another appears, only to have it's brief flowering and also pass away.  If your sprouts are at their best when you aren't or vice-versa, put them in the refrigerator to use later in casseroles or salads: they are delicious.  And by all means, try again.

Rinse the grain and cover with tepid water, letting it stand 12 to 18 hours at room temperature.  Allow the longer period in cooler weather, or shorter in warm weather.  Drain off the liquid, rinse the grain with fresh, tepid water, and store in a dark place with a damp cloth of the top of the container.  I like to use my extra quart sealing jars with a cheesecloth or nylon net over it and an elastic around the edge to hold it together when draining.  Rinse at least every 12 hours for as many days as specified in the recipe you are following. 

For making malt flour, any grain mill that you would use for dry grains will work providing it doesn't heat the flour over 120 degrees F.  We are using a Nutrmill grain mill.   We recommend that you put the sprouts in a dehydrator or a very slow oven (140 degress F. or less)  to dry until completely dry.   I will turn my oven on and then off before I put the trays in it to dry,   If you want to use your sprouts without drying them first, you can chop them fine or coarse with a knife, blender, food processor or my preference, a meat/food grinder.  DO NOT TRY TO GRIND SPROUTS THAT ARE NOT COMPLETELY DRIED IN A GRAIN GRINDER OR STONE MILL AS THESE MILLS ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR WHEAT GRINDING,.

For the Sprouted Breads use a food processor or meat grinder to mush up the sprouts before put them in with the liquids.

Malt:  The sugar most abundantly produced in sprouting grains-- with the help of an enzyme called diastase--is maltose.  The flavour is our familiar malt.  Commercial malt is almost always made from barley as is discussed in one of our earlier posts, but wheat, rice, and other grains can make malt too, though in smaller amounts.

Add in tiny quantities to bread dough , diastatic malt provides an abundant supply of fuel sugar to the growing yeast, with some to spare.  It helps the bread rise nicely, taste sweet, and brown well in the oven, just as if there had been a small amount of sweetener added to the dough.  All of this makes dimalt as it is called, a great boon to people who want to get away from the use of refined sugar.

Be careful though:  if the quantity of dimalt aded is too large, the bread turns into a gooey mess that will not rise or bake properly.  There is a wide range of enzyme activity in the various kinds of malt.  Your own, made from wheat berries, is a low-medium activity malt, but even so we would hesitate to ad more than 1/4 tsp. per loaf's worth of dough.  This amount gives roughly the sweetness you would expect from a teaspoon or two of honey.  When you experiment with your own malt, start with 1/4 tsp., and if you want to increase it, go gradually until you notice that your bread is gummy--then go back one step, and use a little less.  Since the enzymes keep working throughout the rising times, use less dimalt for longer-fermenting breads.  I do not recommend dimalt for extremely long-rising doughs.

We use the wheat berries or kernels for this recipe for homemade dimalt only because it is easier to get and barley is not.  If you can get whole hulless barley like we get on our yearly grain order, it does sprout wonderfully and of course makes excellent malt.  Be sure to rinse sprouting barley faithfully three or four times daily, as it tends to mold quickly.  I put my sprouting jar in a paper bag by the sink so I am reminded to water is everytime I go to prepare a meal,  I don't recommend trying to use regular barley that has its hulls clinging to its sides because I know of no way short of commercial milling (which would renover the germ too) to get the hulls off, and they are truly unpleasant and indigestible.

To Make Dimalt:  sprout the grain, dry it out, grind it up and voila!  Here are the particulars

Prepare sprouts as described earller and let them sprout for about 3 days, until the sprout of the little plant--not the thinner rootlets, which appear first--is nearly as long as the grain itself.  Rinse and drain well, and dry very gently on a towel.  Spread the sprouts on a baking sheet and keep them in a warm, dry, well-ventilated place about 120 degrees F. until the grains are completely dehydrated.  This may take a day or two, however if using a dehydrator they would dry overnight.  To test them, chew one:  it should be brittle, with no toughness.   Use a grain mill to mill the dried sprouts into flour,taking care not to let them get hot as they grind or the enzymes will be destroyed.  Store in a cool airtight container.  Once cupful of grain will yield about 2 to 3 cups of malted flour.

If you don't have a grain mill, you can use the sprouts undried--to good effect.  In an ordinary blender, puree 1/4 cup sprouts with part of the liquid for a 2 loaf recipe.  Alternatively, towel off the sprouts and use them whole or chopped as a sort of cracked wheat.  In that case, since much of the enzyme will stay in the sprout and not enter the dough, you can uses as much as a full cup per loaf of whole sprouts; 1/4 cup chopped.  The longer they are in the dough, the greater the effect on it, so gauge your timing to the quantity of sprouts you have in the bread. ( By the way, when you eat bread made with whole sprouts, be wary of the ones on the crust: they will bake hard)

Ordinary (non-diastatic) malt syrups that you may see in some recipes, is used only for flavouring and sweetener, not for any enzyme activity.  Should you inadvertently overheat your sprouts so that their enzymes are destroyed--this happens at about 140 degrees F.--they can still flavour bread or hot cereal in a malty way that is quite delicious.

BASIC SPROUTED WHEAT BREAD RECIPE