The perfect sized sprout for breadBy Cookbad
I'm working on the right proportions to sub in sprouted wheat for wheat flour in bread. Once wheat goes from just a seed to a sprouted seed a whole bunch of it's properties change. They increase in digestive enzymes, proteins, good fats and fiber, overall making a healthier more complex carbohydrate bread.
With all those good things in mind, I'm not sure what replacing regular wheat flour with sprouted wheat will do to the dough. I'm curious to see how the gluten is effected.
BUT FIRST, I need to sprout some wheat, which is pretty much as easy as growing mold on bread.
I invested 8USD in a sprouting jar --it's just a large glass jar with a lid that is made of wire mesh. You can easily improvise one by replacing a large regular jar's lid with either cheese cloth held in place with a tight rubber band. Easier still, poke a bunch of holes in the lid of a jar. Don't use too small a jar. The seeds need room to breath.
Next, I put to use some wheat berries that have been sitting in the back of my pantry for 5 months. Wheat berries are wheat flour before it's ground down and processed.
What I did was:
Throw a handful or two in the jar with 3 cups of water and leave them to soak overnight, 8-16 hrs. Then, empty out the water, and rinse the berries by adding some more water to the jar, swishing it around some and then pouring it out. Do that twice.
Rinse them once or twice a day for the next 48-72 hrs.
In about 48 hours some will show tiny spouts. When most have 1/8-1/4 inch shoots -- like in the picture they are ready for bread making.
I'm going to try 2 different things with my sprouts. I put half in the freezer and the other half, I'm going to mill into flour.
To mill then into flour they need to be dehydrated, which is you can do in an oven at low heat. Spread them on a baking sheet and put them in your oven at 200 max. My oven is ancient and doesn't want to go below 300 no matter how low I set it, so I just left the door slightly open and checked them every 5 minutes, stirring them each check so the ones on the outside didn't get toasted. It took about an hour for them to dry. I checked by taking one berry out, letting it cool and then biting it. If ti was soft, they were still damp.
Eventually, one cracked under my teeth, so I turned off the oven and let them continue to dry. There they sit, waiting to take a turn in my soon to be very cleaned out coffee grinder/ flour mill.
Stay tuned.
With all those good things in mind, I'm not sure what replacing regular wheat flour with sprouted wheat will do to the dough. I'm curious to see how the gluten is effected.
BUT FIRST, I need to sprout some wheat, which is pretty much as easy as growing mold on bread.
I invested 8USD in a sprouting jar --it's just a large glass jar with a lid that is made of wire mesh. You can easily improvise one by replacing a large regular jar's lid with either cheese cloth held in place with a tight rubber band. Easier still, poke a bunch of holes in the lid of a jar. Don't use too small a jar. The seeds need room to breath.
Next, I put to use some wheat berries that have been sitting in the back of my pantry for 5 months. Wheat berries are wheat flour before it's ground down and processed.
What I did was:
Throw a handful or two in the jar with 3 cups of water and leave them to soak overnight, 8-16 hrs. Then, empty out the water, and rinse the berries by adding some more water to the jar, swishing it around some and then pouring it out. Do that twice.
Rinse them once or twice a day for the next 48-72 hrs.
In about 48 hours some will show tiny spouts. When most have 1/8-1/4 inch shoots -- like in the picture they are ready for bread making.
I'm going to try 2 different things with my sprouts. I put half in the freezer and the other half, I'm going to mill into flour.
To mill then into flour they need to be dehydrated, which is you can do in an oven at low heat. Spread them on a baking sheet and put them in your oven at 200 max. My oven is ancient and doesn't want to go below 300 no matter how low I set it, so I just left the door slightly open and checked them every 5 minutes, stirring them each check so the ones on the outside didn't get toasted. It took about an hour for them to dry. I checked by taking one berry out, letting it cool and then biting it. If ti was soft, they were still damp.
Eventually, one cracked under my teeth, so I turned off the oven and let them continue to dry. There they sit, waiting to take a turn in my soon to be very cleaned out coffee grinder/ flour mill.
Stay tuned.
S
12 comments:
Very cool! I cannot wait to hear what you think of the bread. What a great experiment!
Welcome to The Foodie Blogroll! :)
is there any part II, I am keen to know the result,TQ
I just ground up the dried sprouted wheat berries which resulted in a half a cup of "flour".
But I cannot find a recipe or bread- all the ones I found suggest using part white flour or all purpose flour, or leaving the dough raw.
I just want to find a recipe that uses the ground up dehydrated sprouted whole wheat flour i've got (I also have some yeast packets)... any recipes on how to make a loaf of bread give the above?
Tina
I, too, am waiting for a part II. A while back I read an article on the internet that gave the best proportions of sprouted wheat flour to regular whole wheat flour, but I haven't been able to find that article again. If anyone finds it, please post it here.
I'm also interested in a part II. I remember reading somewhere on the net that there is a desired proportion of sprouted wheat flour to plain whole wheat flour, but I can't find that site again. It also said that purchased flour (white and wheat) already has some sprouted (labeled "malted") grain flour in it. Commercially, malted barley is used because it is less expensive than malted (sprouted) wheat, but that the malted wheat flour is superior. If anyone can find that site, please post it here.
I was browsing for how to create sprouted wheat and found your very interesting method. As to the recipe using sprouted wheat--I found a book at B&N this weekend called Essential Eating: Sprouted Baking which only uses the author's newly developed, commercially marketed sprouted wheat flour. She says the sprouted flour absorbs a little more moisture than regular flour. Her basic bread recipe calls for 4 tbs butter, 4 tbs maple syrup, 1.5 cups water, 4 cups sprouted flour, 1.5 tsp salt, and 2 tsp yeast. Instructions are just the usual for bread. In fact, a weakness of the book is its focus on buying the flour and not so much on detailed baking instructions. But, it's certainly the first book out with this as the focus which is wonderful and I am really looking forward to trying bread that hopefully won't make me sick.
malt link:
http://jugalbandi.info/2008/03/sprouted-wheat-flour-diastatic-malt-substitute/
I love sprouted wheat bread. Your post is wonderful, and I'm glad I found your site. Lots of interesting things that I'd love to collaborate on - and share with my subscribers.
Oh my god, there's a lot of useful information in this post!
Here is a recipe for the simplest all-sprouted wheat berry bread possible. It's thousands of years old.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/essene-bread-sprouted-grain.aspx
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