Have you ever had sprouted wheat bread? It’s known most commonly as that biblical quoting stuff they sell in the freezer at your local health food store– Ezekiel bread. I have always loved the stuff, it’s the only packaged bread that remotely interests me. It’s supposed to be much more nutritious than bread made from plain flour, and I do believe that’s true, but my real draw is taste and texture– Ezekiel bread has a rich, fresh wheat flavor and nubby texture that I just adore.
The only problem (apart from the price) is that, like any real bread, it gets stale quick and therefore the store has to keep it in the freezer. Being in the freezer, not very many people think to buy it and it sometimes sits in there for a loooong time. It’s almost always so dry that you have to toast it to be able to eat it, and I have even had a few loaves that were literally dehydrated around the edges.
I had wanted to try making my own sprouted wheat bread for years– fresh, moist and affordable! But you need to have a way to grind the sprouted “berries.” It takes either a meat grinder or a food processor (a grain grinder only works on dry grain), so when I finally got a food processor for my birthday two years ago sprouted bread topped my list of uses. I spent a few months experimenting and got some almost, but not quite awesome results. There were a fair number of inedibley dense loaves though and I eventually gave it up.
To make sprouted grain bread, first you soak wheat berries overnight in plenty of water. Then you drain off the water and leave to “sprout,” 6-24 hours or more depending on the temperature. You aren’t sprouting nearly to the degree you might imagine, just watching for the grain to split open at one end and the little white tails to poke out.
When the grains are ready you grind them in either a food processor or meat grinder, and that is when the miracle occurs. First it just looks like a bunch of chopped up wheat berries, but as the grain is chopped finer and finer the gluten is released and suddenly it becomes a cohesive mass of (very nubby) dough.
Part of the reason my loaves were coming out too heavy during my initial run of obsessive trailing, was that my food processor was just not getting enough of the grains ground fine enough before a dough formed, and so not enough gluten was being released. I was getting an extremely coarse bread, essentially chopped grains with just enough gluten to hold them all together, but not enough to sustain much real rising power. The heaviness was daunting, but I do adore bread with real texture and the flavor was amazing– so purely wheat. I felt the golden bell of perfection ring siren-like in my ear. I knew somehow, someday I would need to master this bread.
Several months ago, in the wake of our cancer scare, I bought a big fancy masticating (grinding) juicer ostensibly to make My Man healthful juice. What I have really ended up using and loving it for is sprouted wheat bread! You just remove the screen to turn it into a food grinder, and it does a beautiful job, getting a much finer grind than the food processor. It’s easier to use and easier to clean. I have made a few perfect loaves, and hardly any inedible ones. Overall, a great success.
But! You probably don’t have a masticating juicer laying around, right? (If you do, see below) Fear not, for although my juicer gave me the motivation to get back at my sprouted bread technique, I have since learned a few things and even figured out how to transfer my improved recipe and technique to the food processor. All for you, dear few people who have the time and inclination to fret about such things!
The absolute most important part of making sprouted grain bread is getting just the right amount of sprouting going on. As the grain wakes up and pushes that first little rootlet out, it converts the complex carbohydrates into simple sugars to feed the emerging plant. If you let the grain sprout too much, there isn’t enough starch structure left to support bread, and your loaf will be very, very heavy and gummy and not good at all. I read several recipes that said to let the sprout grow to anything from 1/4 inch to “the length of the grain.” Unless I am missing something, this is purely bogus and tragically misleading. From my experience over the last several months, anything over a 1/8th inch is not worth even using**
Watch your grain closely for the first few times. The soaked grain won’t do anything at all for the first few or several hours, then you will see each grain split open just a little at one end and reveal the white inside. A small tip or protrusion will start to bulge out (we are talking very, very tiny here). At this point the process starts to move much faster so keep a close eye. Longer sprouting time makes for a sweeter, fuller flavor but it also makes the bread gummier and heavier, this is a very fine balancing point which I am still navigating. You can actually make very good bread any time after the grain splits open, but I believe the magical perfect moment occurs sometime after the emergence of a visible tip or tail and before it reaches 1/8th inch in length.
I recommend starting this process in the morning, then you can soak all day, let the grain sit and think about things overnight, then watch closely for sprouting throughout the next day. If you see the grain split open right before bedtime, morning is too far away to let the sprouting continue. Trust me. Put the whole bowl in the fridge and take it out again in the morning to restart the process. This works just fine and saves a potential botched loaf.
**If you really get into this sprouted bread, you will at some point let the sprouting process get away from you. You’ll suddenly remember your grain after coffee the next morning and run panicking into the kitchen. The tails will be winding down through the mesh sieve looking for dirt. Don’t dump the bowl out for chickens (although they would love you for it, and it’s hardly a loss) just whiz the sprouts up in the food processor and freeze in four approximately cup sized portions. You can add these into a recipe of regular flour based bread and they work just fine, adding great flavor and texture.
Other than timing, my main improvement has come from using a small portion of white flour. I use about 75% sprouted wheat (by dry weight) and 25% white flour. I realize this could get some Ezekiel panties in a bunch, but I’m no purist. I just want to make delicious toothsome bread that can truly fill my belly for breakfast, eggs optional. This is the stuff. So damned satisfying, on an almost primal level.
Please note that I do not recommend trying this recipe unless you are already a seasoned bread baker. Sorry. It is quite a bit more tricky than making bread from flour, with a much wider possibility for error. Might I recommend my Cherry Popper Recipe instead? If you are a seasoned bread maker, and you find the whole process as fascinating as me, check out my two part series on 20 years of recipe-less whole wheat bread baking Bread Every Day, Part One: Ingredients and Part Two: Technique.
Approaching Perfection Sprouted Wheat Bread
- 2 cups hard red or hard white wheat berries
- 1/4 cup lentils
- 2 Tablespoons flax seeds
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 1-2 Tablespoons honey
- 3/4 – 1+ cups white bread flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- big squirt flax oil
Soak wheat, lentils and flax seeds in plenty of water for about eight hours. Drain through a fine meshed sieve, rinse thoroughly, and leave the grain in the sieve, set over a bowl and covered. Rinse again before you go to bed and take a close look at the grain. You probably won’t see any signs of sprouting yet, if you do, stick the whole thing in the fridge for the night.
In the morning, rinse and check your grain again. If you have to leave the house and you are concerned your grain might sprout too much in your absence, or if it’s ready but you aren’t ready to make the dough, just stick it in the fridge and continue later.
Whenever both you and the wheat are ready, begin with the recipe.
Warm the milk to child-bath temperature, stir in the yeast and let sit five minutes. Pour half the milk into your food processor, add half the sprouted grain (unless you have a commercial size processor you will have to do this in two batches, annoying but true) and turn it on. It will take several minutes per batch, first it will look like this:
Then like this:
And finally you will see lots of good gluten strands and a real (albeit wet and chunky) dough forming, like this:
Transfer the first batch to a stand mixer or large bowl, and process the remaining grain, mixed with the other half of the milk/yeast.
When it’s all done, pour the honey, salt and oil on top of the mushy dough, then add the 3/4 cup of white bread flour. Mix on low for a few minutes, or hand knead for 5. Add more flour as necessary to make a moderately soft dough (it will be very sticky, in fact I haven’t tried this by hand, it might be challenging… But resist the temptation to add too much flour or your dough will be stiff and your loaf dry)
Let rise for an hour or two, until a finger poke does not bounce back. (Keep in mind, both now and when rising the loaf that this dough doesn’t have nearly as much gluten as a flour based dough, so it won’t rise nearly as high.) Pat the dough out into a rough rectangle and roll up into a tight log the length of your bread pan. Butter the pan generously and nestle the dough in. Cover with plastic and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour and a half, or until just shy of the finger poke spring back test. Turn the oven on to 350 F about halfway through the rising process. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until golden brown and hollow sounding when thumped. Remove from the pan and wrap the hot loaf in a clean tea towel to keep the crust from getting too hard. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing! No cheating, you’ll gum up the bread slicing it too soon.
Like all real bread, this will only last a few days sitting out on the counter. Store in the fridge to keep up to a week, or slice and freeze if you want it to last longer.
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**2013 Sprouted Bread Update**
Since this has turned out to be the enduringly viewed article on my entire blog (!) I thought I would post an update.
I have continued to make this bread, and enjoy it so much it’s almost an addiction. Once you taste it, it’s hard to go back to regular flour bread, which tastes flat to me now. My first improvement on the above technique was to sprout large batches of grain, grind it all at once, then store individual recipe sized lumps in the freezer for later use. I find this a little easier than the weekly sprouting, and makes each washing of the grinding equipment (a large portion of the work) worth 4 loaves of bread, instead of just one. I highly recommend it.
My second improvement was purely accidental. Poor housekeeping. I took out one of those frozen chunks of ground wheat to make bread with the following day, but forgot about it on the counter. A few days later when I remembered, it smelled like sourdough! I made up my dough with just water (instead of milk) and nixed the honey. I cut the yeast in half. I let the formed loaves rise in our cold garage overnight. The resultant sourdough sprouted wheat bread was the best loaf I think I have ever made or tasted. Unbelievable.
Since then I have attempted to repeat this, with variable success. I do find it needs a greater proportion of white bread flour (and water to match) to come out well. Sourdough and sprouted wheat can both make bread gummy and overly heavy, and when you combine them, the danger increases. I would recommend starting at 50/50 sprouted wheat to white bread flour, meaning apx 2 cups of sprouted grain, 3/4 cup of water and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of bread flour. After you get the hang of it, you can play around with increasing the percentage of sprouted wheat, or using some whole wheat flour in place of some of that white flour.
Normally I don’t like to make my staple bread less than 75% wheat. But I feel like with the combined health benefits of the sprouted wheat and the sourdough, and the outrageously good flavor and texture, it’s worth it.
Note that I am still using regular yeast, so this isn’t any pure kind of sourdough. I’m not a purist. For a wild yeast strong enough to rise bread, you’d have to feed it and grow it out several times. This ‘just leave it on the counter’ method is a quick and easy way to get a delicious half-soured bread. In our cool home (avg 65 degrees) I thaw my sprouted wheat two full days before I want to bake the bread, that seems to give the right amount of tang.
One last thing– in my experience with whole wheat sourdoughs, I find that they often get a very odd smell. It doesn’t necessarily smell like deliciously tangy sourdough. Mine often smells downright weird, not rotten but just strangely musty. Somehow in the baking process that musty smell nevertheless turns into yummy sourdough flavor. I do feel the need to stress however that if you suspect your soured dough is actually rotten or bad, please do not eat it!
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2016 Update: Just wanted to tell you all that I am still following the above formula for half-soured sprouted wheat bread and loving it! I don’t manage to keep it on hand at all times, life is full and complex after all, but I go through good phases of making a loaf a week and eating a slice every morning with my (homegrown) egg. Breakfast of champions!
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The Juicer Story
With the threat of radiation therapy hanging in our future several months ago, I researched and bought a $300 masticating juicer. I was convinced that I was going to start making healthful carrot-apple juices for My Man, and start growing and juicing wheatgrass, all of which are cancer fighting goodness. I read a lot about juicers in a fear induced researching bender, trying in my little way I suppose to feel like I had any control whatsoever over the outcome.
I admit that, even as I entered my credit card information, I knew on some level that I would not use the juicer to make juice. Sometimes I just get it into my head that I have to do or buy something and I cannot rest until the deed is done. Not surprising to anyone, least of all me– my juicing days didn’t last more than a few weeks. Cutting up all those apples and carrots was a lot of work! And watching the juice go undrunk in the fridge just about killed me. But I patted myself reassuringly on the back with the idea that, given my circumstances, wasting $300 on something that I had hoped would help My Man’s health was entirely forgivable.
Plus, I had a fall back plan. Or perhaps it was an ulterior motive. Because I bought a very high quality masticating juicer, it doubles as a food grinder, you just have to remove the screen. Grinding sprouted grain for bread dough is much more effective than chopping it into oblivion in the food processor, and my Omega 8004 Masticating Juicer has become a workhorse of an entirely different color. I’m guessing that it works better than a meat grinder and might be the perfect home power tool for sprouted wheat bread.
If you too would like to try using a masticating juicer to grind sprouted wheat, you can pretty much follow the recipe above. The Omega 8004 has a special extra hard auger, the manual specified that you could grind grain in it (though, I would be afraid to try it on un-sprouted dry grain) and it has a 15 year warranty. I’m not sure I’d try using a lesser juicer unless I didn’t care if it broke, or had specific okay from the manufacturer. Sprouted grain is obviously not what these things were designed for, though it is surprisingly smashable once sprouted, you can even chew the grains.
The grinding is very straightforward, just pour the sprouted grain in a little bit at a time– don’t fill the hopper or it can get bogged down. Interestingly, the bogging down doesn’t happen when the grains are more sprouted, then I can fill the hopper and even plunge it down, and they go through fine. But it definitely happens when the grain is on the less sprouted side of things. Just go slow at first while you figure things out.
I put mine through twice. After the first grind it is still pretty chunky, though probably as good as the food processor. After the second grind it comes out as a hollow dough tube. I like to put the warm milk and yeast into my Kitchen-Aid bowl, then grind the wheat in on top of it. After the first grind, I scoop up the majority of the wheat one handful at a time to re-grind. Then I add the flour, salt, honey and oil and mix it on low for 10 minutes.
If you want to make 100% sprouted wheat bread, I would recommend a third grind to really release the maximum amount of gluten.
Enjoy your primal bread experience, and please leave a comment telling me it how it goes for you!
Apron Stringz 
So excited to have found this! Thanks for sharing your technique and recipe.
you are a () rock star!
Thanks, been wanting to make this for years!
I’m so inspired by this – I can’t wait to give it a go. I will report back.
Looks like you have spelled it out well. Should be easy to follow. I just need to find 2 days in a row at home, it sounds like. Are you using brown, red or green lentils?
I have a “meat” grinder that belonged to my grandmother. She and my mother used it to grind up potatoes to make potato pancakes. It is definitely not fancy like the one you show…it is cast metal and clamps on the side of the table. I haven’t used it myself as I never mind sitting and grating by hand. Think that will work? I hate to get started on this and find out can’t get past the grating part.
You only need one day home, the second day. The first day the grain is just soaking, no attendance necessary.
An old fashioned hand crank meat grinder should work. If you have the grinder plates (should be at least two, with smaller and larger holes) But, it was used to grate potatoes? That doesn’t sound like a meat grinder. A meat grinder has an auger which pushes the chunks of meat towards and then through the holes in the plate. Seems like it would just mangle a potato…
Anyway, hand cranking will be slow. But since you don’t have kids underfoot it’s totally doable.
I know the grinder has an auger mechanism. Yes they used it to make the potato pancakes. I guess not really “grated”. But that is what I remember it being used for. They also would grind up ham and pickles and make a sandwich spread too.
I haven’t looked at it for years. It is in the basement in one of the canning cupboards. Don’t remember if it had changeable plates. Better send someone down to find it for me.
What about indoor temps? Still pretty cool here in the house, down about 58 at night, warms up to about 65 in the day if the sun is shining. Would I need to supplement some heat?
Lower temps will make the whole process take longer, but I think it will still work. It might take up to five days or so. Keep rinsing twice/day. I don’t think fluctuating temps would be a problem, so put it in whatever spot gets warmest during the day.
Wow, that is super comprehensive! I can’t say I have either a masticating juicer or a food processor at the moment, but I will definitely keep this in the back of my mind and pull it out when at some point I get one or the other.
I’ve tried this before, but didn’t add the milk before grinding, so I burned out 2 coffee grinders and a food processor trying to grind the sprouted berries by themselves…. what a simple fix! Have you ever thought about making bulghur flour by dehydrating the sprouted berries in the oven and then grinding them into flour? I haven’t tried it yet, but read about it recently and thought I’d give it a shot
I finally made this today (and yesterday!)
I started soaking at 12 noon yesterday, strained and rinsed at 8pm, got up at 11.30pm for a rinse and check. Then this morning I rinsed at about 8am and got started with the grinding at about 9am.
I used the meat mincer on my KitchenAid. I put it through twice (without the milk). The motor heated up a bit, and it slowed down when it was doing some serious mincing, but I was confident it would cope as I have given it a good workout in the past making butter and grinding grain!
I also mixed the dough in the KitchenAid. I scraped down the sides a few times and only used the 3/4 cup flour recommended.
When rising I covered the bowl in Glad Wrap and put it outside, just out of the sun. It was only 70f here this morning at 10am when I was making it. Once I moved it in to the baking pan I re-covered with greased baking paper and plastic and put it in full sun with a black tea towel over the top. It came over overcast while the tin was outside. About 45 mins later I brought it inside and sat it uncovered on the bench while waiting for the oven to heat up.
I waited the full 20 mins cooling time before cutting (this took me through until 1.10pm), but it was still quite hot and gummed my knife up quite a bit. I ended up washing my knife 3 times to make it easier to cut. I could have waited for it to cool more, but was so keen for my husband to try it before he went back to work after lunch!
I’m now enjoying a lovely slice with cultured butter and honey for afternoon tea!
Thanks so much for your blog post. I’ve been sharing it with all my friends.
wow! thanks for the detailed report back! i wondered as i put the many hours into this post whether anyone would actually use it ;) so glad to hear you did. what was your overal impression. did you like it? will you make it again?
thanks again for letting me know how it came out.
Oh trust me….here it is two years later and I too am working hard to do it right. I found it a tiny bit difficult to reconcile the original recipe with the updated one, but it looks like a nice dough so far. A REALLY nice dough.
OMG….Best. Bread. Ever.
I just made this loaf tonight, or finished it I should say as I started soaking the wheat 2 days ago! Loved it, it was exactly what I was looking for. I was a bit concerned by how soft and sticky the dough was but it came together. Thanks for the detailed instructions.
oh yea! more proof of usefulness! thank you so much for letting me know. glad you enjoyed it.
I think I qualify as a seasoned bread baker, so I should give this another try. I did try to sprout grain once and nothing really happened–perhaps I didn’t wait long enough or perhaps I was looking for a much bigger sprout–the photos you show are very helpful (to see how little those tails are). I was using Peter Reinhart’s recipe from his whole grain book but as they didn’t sprout I guess I didn’t really “use” it. I make sourdough bread a few times a week, and although I try to use at least 50% whole grain I find I do like some white flour. I’m pushing that percentage up bit by bit, however. I just eat that and jam and yogurt for breakfast now, I don’t even eat box cereal anymore! So I hear you on bread-for-breakfast aspirations!
If your wheat berries have been processed at all (like putting dry ice in with the wheat to protect it from weviels) it kills the endosperm and your grain won’t sprout. I had some like that and it never did sprout.
OK, I have some sprouted kamut in the fridge. I’m gonna try. But (and I don’t want to sound bitchy here) does the store bought Ezekiel bread contain added white flour too? There is a sprouted wheat bread here I used to buy that supposedly contains no flour, just ground up sprouted grains. Have you tried this?
yup, ezekiel is 100% sprouted grain. no flour. don’t know how they do it. all my first experiments (in the first post two years ago) were 100% and they were very heavy. i don’t have a problem with the added white flour personally, i add white flour to my regular wheat bread recipe anyway. but it isn’t as excitingly Pure.
I’m sure Ezekiel has some heavy duty masticating juicer-type commercial machine with 4-5X the power to handle the sprouted grains without the need to add extra flour.
I found this interesting version of the Ezekiel bread, he cooks his grains and legumes to make a pre-ferment first– http://www.urbansimplicity.com/2011/04/ezekiel-breadmy-interpretation.html
In the post above it suggests running your sprouted grain through the grinder a third time if you aren’t going to use white flour.
Let us know how it goes, if you end up trying it, Erica. :)
Thank you for this post! I have the same juicer, and bought it for making wheat grass juice, too….I did end up making it daily and still do 2 years later (after a bout with cancer)…..but I think it’s hard to do this for someone else.
Anyway, I regularly sprout wheat and want to make my own bread and so I googled ‘grinding sprouted wheat’ and found your great blog post….using the Omega(!). I plan to combine your method with a great recipe for no-knead bread that was in the NYTimes a while back. It makes a bubbly, chewy, crusty loaf, but I have only tried it with white flour. Again….THANKS! Linda
hi there, thanks for letting me know you found this, and how. posts like these are a labor of love for the very few people who find them useful… it’s always good to hear from those few!
my experience with the no-knead bread was that more than 1/4 whole wheat (in flour form) negated all the great “artisan” style of the bread and made it too heavy and wheaty. but i never tried it with the sprouted grain. i hope you report back here!
I have the omega juicer, identical, and it has proven to be the ULTIMATE kitchen tool.. I couldn’t live without it now! I can’t wait to run my sprouted grains through this, great idea! I run dry grains through as well, though it seems to wear the machine down a bit ( I do it very slowly) but probably not the best idea. I’m so thankful for this article, so now I don’t have to dehydrate my sprouted grains and then purchase a grind mill to make bread. Will be trying this recipe and then Ezekiel bread. THANK YOU!!
I just tried this, with a twist! I used whole wheat flour instead of white, agave nectar instead of honey and coconut oil instead of flax seed oil. I wouldn’t call it alight loaf, but it was way better than my first attempt. It was actually really good! Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I am soooo Excited to try this….just started soaking my wheatberries and I think I’ll try adding some of the lesser sprouts that I had going prior to reading this post…I’ll just throw in some and see what happens! Thank you for such a well developed “How to”!!!!
@ Erica: I first learned about Ezekiel bread through the “eat right for your blood type” book. Here is a link to the actual recipe that has no flour. And it has other things you can make with the same dough…like crackers, etc. http://www.dadamo.com/forum/archive8/config.pl?read=40944
If this link doesn’t work just go to dadamo.com and search for “ezekiel bread recipe”. I wish I could say I had made it but I don’t have a food processor or a food mill (that it calls for). So, I’m shopping for that. Let me know if you try and how it came out…
You are a doll! You just saved me $200+ I see a great recipe for Essene bread on the i’net and I’m sprouting Kamut. :-)
I have just found this site and love the recipe. I will be trying it this week when I figure out times to get it all started and made within decent hours. I make white bread a lot but don’t eat it. Just give it away or sell it. I learned that if I keep it in the house it means an extra 5 lbs I have to carry around with me . This bread is a lot harder to make as I have 8 bread machines doing all the work on the white bread. Thanks for putting this info here for all us to read.
Awesome post! My husband has been advised to only eat sprouted grain bread. He bought me a Thermomix a few months back so it should cope with all the methods required. Which lentils do you use. Will let you know how I go. Cheers.
I’ve been following a different recipe, where you take wet sprouted grains and blend them with water, yeast, honey. Then you take about 3 cups of sprouted wheat flour (which I’d grind in a power blender like Vitamix) and work it into the liquid until it becomes dough. The rising takes place in the oven at 170 degrees F for about 30 mins. It’s an easy recipe, only 5 mins. of kneading. But making 3 cups of dehydrated sprouted wheat flour takes too long, especially in a $65 Nesco dehydrator, that is round with a hole in the middle making it a tricky enterprise trying to pour the grain into a bucket for storage after dehydrating. So I’ve been searching the internet for an alternative recipe that uses more wet sprouted grains when I found yours. So my question is… can I use sprouted grain flour to replace the white flour in this recipe?
certainly! it may or may not meet your taste standards, i don’t know… try it.
I will try it this week and let you know the results. Thanks so much for emphasizing exactly how sprouted the grains need to be – I’ve definitely made my share of bread that never looks cooked inside with overly sprouted wheat berries. I also appreciate the photos of the food processing stages and the explanation of how the yeast interacts with gluten… I am a long-time baker, of sweets not bread, and the whole yeast-and-dough chemistry has all been a mystery to me!
I am wondering if the kitchenaid meat grinder attachment would work to grind the sprouted wheat finer like your masticating juicer. Alone or maybe after being processed in food processor? let me know what you think. I am really excited to try your recipe. thanks
hi yvette, sorry, i just saw your question. havent been checking in here very often lately… yes, i am almost certain a kitchen aid grinder attachment would work. youd want to run it through a few times though, on the smallest size holes. let us know if it works out!
Oh! Thank you so much for this helpful information. I have had a few failures in my attempts at sprouted wheat bread. Due to my resistance to buying a $5.00 loaf of bread, I kept looking for an answer. I’m happily enjoying a delicious slice of toasted bread made with your recipe at this very moment. I happen to own an OMEGA juicer so I gave it a whirl…I used buttermilk in place of the milk in your recipe, and added 1 Tbl. of gluten flour to help it rise better (insurance?) as suggested in Peter Reinhart’s WHOLE GRAIN BREADS book. It turned out chewy, but not tough. Thin, yet crispy crust, with a moist, slightly dense crumb. Ahhh…Just what I was looking for!
At last I have found the ‘perfect’ bread for me! I made this yesterday using your excellent instructions. I have a similar juicer, so I ground my sproutings twice. I don’t have a stand mixer, so I just used my food processor. I found I needed more flour (200g all up), to make a very sticky dough. This is just the sort of bread I love to eat, and find so hard to buy. Dense enough to slice nice and thin, and with a great texture. Thanks so much for sharing.
in my love of Ezekiel bread….something with the lower glycemic index and its so good and tasty..I googled for a recipe and dang up you popped!!! I hate the cost of E bread….almost 5 bucks a loaf here in fairbanks…and as I look at all my appliances that have collected dust…the breadmaker, the waffle iron…the food processor…..shazam….there was one I could dust off and put to use!!! I mostly do canning, dehydrating, growing things that are supposed to be veggies but darned if they dont end up so small that they really look like the pricey gourmet veggies…lol… I do bake bread…by hand…as in up to the elbows yeasty flour in the hair rustic thick heavy dense bread….now that I found this recipe…I currently have eaten my first two loaves by myself…hoarding every last crumb…and thanking the goddesses of baking for your recipe and sprouting info….thanks so much for the tutorial…its better than most of my recipe books I paid dearly for and never really got what I wanted out of them….
fairbanks, wow! did you see that we live in cordova? we were in new orleans when i wrote most of this blog, but we are back in AK now.
thanks for the report back on the recipe!
Hi Linda:
I am curious how this method worked with the no-knead style of bread baking. I tried baking this last night and had to sort of default to no-knead as I could not knead by hand- dough was really sticky and would not come together. So I let it rise on its own (good first and second rise) and came out really gummy from the oven. Good taste, but will have to get creative with it and make bread pudding or something. Not really sliceable the way it is. Curious how your method worked. Thanks.
as i said to linda, i myself never had much luck using a large portion of wheat in the no-knead recipe, and since the sprouted bread tend towards glueyness anyway, i wouldnt think they would work together very well. i would try again and 1. do not over sprout! cant stress enough, if there is much of anything resembling a “tail” it will be gluey. 2. just keep adding flour until the dough is nice and cohesive, not quite firm, but like a regular soft bread dough. better to have a delicious loaf of 50% sprouted bread than an inedible loaf of 90%.
and, sorry, i tried the bread pudding trick. doesnt work with the too gluey loaves. neither does stuffing or anything else. it does make really high quality bird food….
It’s so refreshing to find information about this topic that is not shrouded in mysticism and half-truths (if that) about the nutrient qualities and healing abilities some imagine wheat sprouts posses. As the detective said ”Just the facts lady just the facts”. Like you, I’ve looked into these sprouts for the taste. Newer techniques such as these sprouts, long fermentation and others are giving home bread baking the tools to produce really great tasting breads.
I found your blog while looking for info on sprout length and that it exactly what I found.
Thanks.
Robbin.
I just wanted you to know this sprouted grain bread recipe is my favorite now. I use some sprouted grain flour mixed with white einkorn flour, which worked fine for my taste. I am used a heavy, whole grain taste. I do have to make two loaves at a time or there won’t be enough bread!
I have left a message earlier but it doesnt seem to show. I have tried this method and have been making delicious loaves , but i seem to have a problem my wheat wont sprout that long as in the picture above. I live in egypt and the wheat here is probably not that fresh is that the reason? and will i still get the benefit of the sprouting process , …..
hi Mona, i dont know the answer to that. certainly being old could make it not sprout…. does it open and show a white bulge at the end? how long are you leaving it for? are you rinsing it often?
from what i have read, just soaking the wheat, even if it doesn’t sprout, does give a health benefit. and if the loaves taste good, then it’s a success!
i would try leaving it for a few days though (rinsing twice/day), maybe up to a week, to see if sprouting does eventually occur.
hmmm, just had a thought. i wonder if they might spray a chemical on the wheat to keep it from sprouting…? i haven’t heard of that here, but they might do it in other countries.
good luck! and let me know if you try leaving it for a long time and it never sprouts, just rots. that would be interesting to know.
Luckily, I have the Omega 8004! and I do indeed juice with it. I’m literally addicted to fresh veggie juice. Wheat, on the other hand, has always given me fits … I bloat, crave carbs and get fat. I honestly think that sprouted wheat would be different. Tell me: when you grind the sprouted berries, do you put in the secondary black thingie over the auger? It has a blade, like a shaver rather than a screen. Will the Omega work without it?
Jo Robbins
hmmm, mine didn’t come with a blade. i just use the grinding sleeve (did yours come with two, one for juicing and one for grinding?) which squishes them out through a pretty small crack. but, i’d try it with the blade if i had one, might work even better.
and yes, i would think sprouted wheat might do you considerably better than regular flour bread.
let us know either way!
Great post. Pictures are very helpful. I tried this and am pleased enough to want to purchase a food processor. Do you have any suggestions?
nope, sorry. i got a kitchen aide brand, which you would think to be about top of the line, but the little plastic threads that hold the tub onto the base broke almost immediately. i sent it back, and they did send me a new one, but then it happened AGAIN! it still works, there are three threads, and two of them have broken. i really baby it now, hold the top down when using it. but when the last one goes, it will be all over.
i do really work that thing though….
good luck!
I am going to try this. Have you ever usrd a breadmachine instead of your mixer?
no, i never have used a bread machine at all. somehow i feel it would increase the moistness of the sprouted bread, which i think would make it too moist (gooey). but, it’s definitely worth a try! if you do try it, please post back here for other folks!
Dough is raising. Those pictures really helped. Hopefully tomrw fresh sprouted grain bread and fresh juice. We just have Jack Lalane juicer. Nothing that masticates, although i was quite happy with my foodprocessor.
editor’s note: i just put an update up, under the recipe above. i noticed quite a few folks are subscribed to the comments for this post, so thought this might be a good way to let you know about the update.
happy sprouting!
Just trying this recipe for the first time this week. Thanks, it looks yummy! One problem I am having is that after the 1st rise (2 hrs under plastic in a bowl on my counter approx. 65F) the dough is still very sticky and gloppy. I was not able to “roll it up” and place it in the bread pan and instead transferred it in sections and patted it down gently in the pan. I am now doing the second rise in the pan and wondering if it was not warm enough during the first or if I did not grind up the grain fine enough. I did it in a food processor but could still see whole flax seeds. The lentils and wheat appeared broken up fairly well and the consistency appeared similar to your photos.
Any suggestions are much appreciated!
hi Laura, it sounds like your dough is just too wet. needs more flour. i assume you have already baked this loaf, and i am guessing that it was denser and heavier than it needed to be…? try again, but add plenty of flour. you don’t want a stiff dough, but you do want a DOUGH. if after the second rise it appears too wet, it’s totally fine to add more flour at that point.
being wet and floppy is not a sign of having not risen (necessarily) in fact, a very wet dough, if OVER risen, falls all apart, but in a wet way. making it impossible to pick up as you say. this situation still can be saved by adding some flour!
hope you weren’t put off, try, try again! and the flax seeds not getting ground up is fine. they are slippery little buggers. as long as everything else looks right, should be good.
Yes, that sounds like it was the issue. Thanks for the clarification. I was trying to follow your advice and use as little flower as possible so I only used 3/4 cup and all I had was whole wheat flower on hand. The loaf came out a bit dense but with a really nice flavor. I will def. try it again with more flower.
Great recipe!
Whoops, I meant flour. Been gardening a bit too much lately!
Hi, there. I’ve been experimenting with sprouted wheat bread for a couple of weeks now. I have a Green Life masticating juicer and the sprouts come out as a fine paste. I didn’t use lentils and flax as I don’t have them on hand. I baked this to 205 degrees but it is still very gummy inside. I used about a cup of bread flour. Any suggestions? Thanks for posting this. It has been helpful.
Two possibilities. Either you over sprouted the grain, which is very easy to do, or your dough was too wet. Adding more flour will help in either case. If you don’t want to add more white flour, add some whole wheat.
Hope you give it another go!
Just found this and I am so excited to try it out. I have a question, do you think if I dehydrate the sprouted wheat, flax and lentils a bit, that I can run it through a wheat mill? The reason I ask, is that I am worried that it needs to be pretty dry to mill. What are your thoughts? Thank you so much:)
I don’t know about this myself, but others are dehydrating the sprouted grain and then grinding it. Sounds like it would work fine if you have a dehydrator or oven with a pilot light.
Will a Champion Juicer work for this process?
Yes, I’m pretty sure it would.
We have been trying a different approach and I was curious for your opinions. We have been sprouting hard red and then we dehydrate it and then use our wheat grinder to turn it into flour. The bread consists of the sprouted wheat, honey, yeast, butter and water. What’s odd is that the fist few loaves turned out Amazing and the next few have been heavy as bricks and I can’t figure out why? The taste is still good but not like the first few loaves. We have tried several different yeasts still can not figure out why it’s not the same.
My first (and only) thought is that you hit your second batch of sprouts and they had been sprouted for too long…? Could that be it? It is a super fine line, and goes fast from ‘perfect’ to over sprouted.
Hi there! I really appreciate all the info about sprouting and using the juicer to grind the sprouts. I have used the meat grinder on my KitchenAid to grind the sprouts but it’s comes out quite corse. One time I put the sprouts through the meat grinder a second time but it was sooo difficult to push them through. I said I’d never do it again. With your Omega juicer is it difficult to get the sprouts to go through a second time? Do you have to push like crazy?
I’m using Peter Reinhart’s recipe for 100% sprouted bread with only wheat sprouts, salt, water and yeast. My family loves it!!! It’s amazing. It has the sweet taste of a baguette, though it isn’t pretty. It’s moist and delicious. I never knew sprouted bread could be so good. I had only eaten Ezekiel bread before and never liked it though ate it for health reasons.
the second grind is a bit more annoying, but not hard particularly. certainly not physically hard.
so, you are making 100% with the course first grind? wow! congratulations! is it quite dense?
i am curious about Reinharts recipe, is it fermented overnight?
I read that heavy wheat bread happens because there is not enough gluten to cause the bread to fully rise. If you want to have lighter bread and still keep the Ezekiel no flour concept going then I would add gluten. I wondered how it would work using the moist whole wheat gluten instead of the store bought powder. Anyone try this yet?
Hi, I am fascinated by your posts. I have tried the Ezekial bread from the grocery store. Is there any way to make the sprouted bread recipe by buying the “sprouted grain mixture” from a health food or similar store and then completing the recipe?? Online store?? Thank you for any suggestions. Angie
I think you could use sprouted grain flour in a regular bread recipe, you would just want to make sure that it was sprouted wheat, or at least mostly wheat, so that it would have enough gluten. I’d start by using at least 1/4 white bread flour, maybe even half, just until you figured out how the sprouted flour works.
Hi, thanks so much for this recipe. Just one quick question for clarification…you say put oven temperature to 350F half way through the the rising process. Does this mean that the oven is heating up for 20 minutes or more before putting bread in and the temp for cooking is 350F throughout the 50-60 minutes the bread is baking?
yup, you got it. that was just my reminder to folks to preheat the oven… ;)
Hi again, I’ve followed your recipe with limited success. I’m lucky enough to own a masticating juicer so had no problem grinding the seeds. However, the dough didn’t really rise very much the first time and the bread was very dense. The second time I used buttermilk instead of regular milk and half cup coarse wholemeal flour and half cup bran instead of regular flour. The taste of the bread was fantastic I have to say but it was really really wet and although it did rise more than the first time it didn’t rise quite as much as I would’ve liked. Any ideas of where I’m going wrong? The oven temp was as recommended for the 60 mins.
Thanks a mil :-)
try a batch with half sprouted grain, and half white bread flour. i bet it will rise just fine and not be too wet. then you can work your way back toward a greater proportion of sprouts, with confidence under your belt ;)
also, are you sure you are not over sprouting? there really should be almost nothing white poking out, just the tinniest peek.
good luck, don’t give up!
It’s alive! This blog and the bread! I’ve been a sprouter and a juicer for years! I make my bread, uh, well, er, ummmm, with a bread machine, blasphemous as it may sound, but it works for me. Now I’m gonna combine all this and see what sort of mess I can cook up. Thanks for the great insight from you and all the bloggers! BTW, Walmart now sells the pink lentils (gas free).
Was wondering if anyone every tried the sprouted grains in a bread machine?
not i. perhaps someone else will chime in….
try it, but if it’s not good, please do try again in a regular pan in the oven.
Dana, I use a Breville bread machine. I soak 1.5 cups of wheat berries and sprout to 1/8″ as instructed, then process in the food processor with 2 tbsp ea of sunflower and pumpkin seeds and blend on high to the specified consistency then dump it in the BM pan. I add flour (1/2c of ea of ww and barley or rye flour; I also add a tbsp of wheat gluten to make sure I get enough rise with the added low gluten flours). Then 1 tbsp sugar, a tbsp or so of oil, and 1 tsp of salt. Usually I don’t need to add any more liquid because I add 6-7 oz of water when blending. I use Quick Rise (Bread Machine) yeast (1 3/4 tsp). Then it goes on the Whole Wheat cycle (3 1/2 hours) and it (usually) comes out delicious.
awesome! thanks for reporting on the bread machine success! i’m sure this will encourage many readers. i might even add it to the post somewhere to make sure folks know it works!
Thanks so much for this. Sprouted wheat bread is now a staple in my bread machine, but the key to it all is getting the consistency right in the food processor. Your instructions and pictures make that a snap! Wouldn’t have figured this out without your post.
How necessary is the addition of flax oil? If oil is necessary, what would be good substitutes? Thanks
not at all necessary! i think some oil (any kind) helps the texture, but the flax is just because it’s healthy ;)
Fascinating read. I have made bread with a mixture of sprouted, dehydrated (by the woodstove) and ground (in the coffee grinder) wheat berries and equal quantity of freshly sprouted berries, somewhat fermented and blended with water. To this I added white flour. My berries were sprouted much longer than I see you recommend. I did end up with a brick. The outer hard layer I cut away and toasted for crackers, along with some thin slices of the gooey interior. (wetting your knife helps a lot) The rest of the interior I blended with milk and eggs and a little oil, seasoned with garlic powder, basil and our dried tomatoes. This batter was fried into tasty, tender crepes.
Will try again :)
soaking it back into a batter, what a brilliant way to save brick bread!!! i could never think of anything, so i had to compost it.
what a lot of work you went to. too little information in a recipe like this can really be damning. i hope you try again!
Fyi… Flax seed oil does not remain stable when introduced to heat. Flax oil has a very low smoke point (225′), and becomes substantially toxic. During the process of making solvents like linseed oil, oils are heated passed their smoke points to create byproducts. Eaten over time, it may create health issues. It is very important to be aware of your smoke points when heating oil. Sesame oil and hazelnut oil have a smoke point around 430′. Recently, I came in to this information, and as I was putting ingredients together for this recipe, I decided I was obligated to say something. I am not trying to belittle this wonderful recipe in any way. Please know that. :-)
Aside from that, I am soo very excited to begin my bread baking hobby/way of life. This will be my first sprouted grain bread. I must Thank you for your hard work, and time taken to share this with all of us health conscious cooking/baking fools!
Information seeking such as this, makes technology A-ok.
-Paul
thanks for the tip. although the exterior probably gets a bit hotter, the interior of a loaf of bread only gets to 190-210 degrees. so, i’d still feel comfortable with the flax oil myself….
enjoy your experiments!
Hi,
I just pulled this lovely loaf out of the oven. It looks great! I tried a small corner and it seems to be well balanced with a hearty texture. Wish I could post a pic for your reference.
I certainly don’t consider myself to be a seasoned bread maker, but determination and will made up for it : )
Thanks so much for these in depth instuctions and for all the good humor thrown in the mix!
Blessings
PS
I added a quarter cup millet and used maple syrup instead of honey. I ended up using 1and 1/2 cups flour this time, but I’m sure that the more I practice this recipe ( I plan on making it a staple ), the better I’ll get at gauging things. My blended grain looked more like thick porridge than dough, but once I kneaded it with the flour it came together nicely ( I did do that by “hand”-using a wooden spoon to push, pull, and otherwise coherse the dough to come together. I’ll definently be opting for the large-batch technique from now on as we will most likely eat this in half the time it took to make!
I am making mine for the first time and did about a cup of sprouted quinoa and a banana in the food processor, with some spices. it still seems really runny though, not like a dough, more like a muffin batter. do you think this will work? i could put it in a brownie pan instead of kneading it like a bread…
sorry i didn’t read this until just now. i am guessing that it didn’t work out too well…. too wet a dough makes for very sticky and heavy sprouted bread. i’m thinking adding the banana was the problem. once processed bananas are very wet.
hope you try again!
it was actually REALLY good… i thickened it by adding a little almond flour which kind of defeats the purpose of sprouting bread but it was excellent for a first try- — thanks CJ!
so glad it worked out!
Like everyone here, I’ve been experimenting with making sprouted bread. It has been a long journey. Not sure I’m there yet, but pretty happy with the results so far. Here is my recipe in short:
I sprout two gallon containers of wheat (I’m using Kamut and Spelt now); 8 cups of grain each. When they are ready, I dehydrate one container. The other I masticate in my Champion Juicer. To prevent clogging, soak the sprouts for awhile first so they are wet (drain first before you masticate them).
Run the gallon of sprouts through the Champion. One time is enough. Add sourdough starter and let sit over night.
Grind the dehydrated sprouts into flour.
To the sourdoughed mixture I add oil, honey, finely grated carrots (a lot), raisins, salt, and yeast.
Mix in enough sprouted flour with a mixing spoon to get it ready to knead.
Knead in the rest of the sprouted flour (it is usually enough). I knead quite a while (20 minutes or so).
Let rise to double.
Knead and form loaves and let rise (I don’t use bread pans.).
After 5 minutes, re-knead and form loaves again. (This is really quick).
Let rise and bake.
Note: It is somewhat of a heavy loaf; I don’t use it for sandwiches. I haven’t noticed any difference as far as how long I let the sprouts go (length). This doesn’t contain any unsprouted grain which is my goal.
I’d like to try it with the Ezekiel mix that is available.
Enjoy!
I have a juicer just like yours and a part broke. I emailed the company and they told me to email a picture of the broken part to them and they would replace it …and a few days later a whole new part plus the hopper (or whatever you want to call it) came in the mail. I have ground coffee beans in it without any trouble, just do a little at a time. I wouldn’t worry about grinding wheat when coffee beans are harder and bigger. By the way, my son also has this same juicer and broke the auger somehow. They sent him anew one, no questions asked. All they ask is a picture. Good luck grinding….a 15 year warranty here is well worth the price of the juicer!
Hi,
Thank you so much for posting this. It has been an inspiring and very helpful post for me. I really appreciate your thoroughness, and perfectionism. It’s definitely something resonates with me. I decided to take on the task of perfecting sprouted bread about a year ago, after reading a simple recipe in Paul Pitchford’s ‘healing with wholefoods’, which is more or less a bible in our house. The thought of being able to make a loaf of healthy, delicious bread with only sprouted grain seemed too good to be true.. After a number of tries, using a rubbish blender, then after reading your post, i tried my masticating juicer (a slower arduous process, that still left much unground grains). I realised what i needed was a stronger mixer/grinder.. I just came back from 6 months in india, and they grind everything over there, so i picked up a powerful mixer/grinder for pretty cheap.. So, i tried paul pitchfords essene bread recipe again (i haven’t tried your recipe above as i’d prefer not to eat processed flour or yeast, i must say that the bread does look great though..).. so i did a few small loaves, experimenting with ingredients. The recipe basically calls for grinding up sprouts in a food grinder, kneading, shaping into loaf tin or on cookie sheet. then ‘COVER’ and bake for 225-250Fahr for around 2 hours..
I’m contacting you about this, as i’m pretty sure you have more knowledge on the fine details of making perfect sprouted bread, then paul pitchford, or his recipe guide.. Firstly, they call for the sprouts to be the same length as the berry. This advice i will disregard, after re-reading your article and your reasoning behind a very small sprout length i’m sold on the small roots. my last batch was a tad long i must admit, but i’m keen to test the strength of my new grinder with the younger sprouts..
The other point i’m unsure about is this ‘covering’ of the loaf? I just whacked another bread tin over the loaf, but i wondered why it would be necessary, i suppose it may stop it drying out? you have any insight into the best way to cook the purely sprouted bread? whether in a tin or a sheet will effect the cooking?
Would you agree with the longer cook, 2 hours at the relatively low temperature? and whether the loaf would need to be turned half way? (i read that in another essene bread recipe.
Also, i currently not eating wheat, haven’t been for some years, so i make my bread with either rye or spelt. may try a mix of the two for my next batch.. Whether this will effect results, i suppose with the less gluten, the loaves won’t really rise much. Thats fine with me, as long as they’re not super stodgy, which they haven’t been..
So, i think that’s all the queries i have. Sorry if it’s abit much, but as you can see i’ve a long way to go before perfection is reached. i imagine i could have tried another 5-10 batches experimenting with many variations, but i’ve always been an advocate of learning from those who know more than me.. and you definitely know a great deal more than me when it comes to bread baking.
So any wisdom you’re keen to share would be so appreciated. My brother and Sister would be delighted also to get a few more pointers in the right direction when it comes to essene bread baking.
yikes, that’s a long post. sorry about that.
again, i appreciate your thorough investigations into the unknown. It’s trully inspiring.
Peace
Colm
Hello Colm, I’m flattered that you consider me such an expert! I also LOVE Paul Pitchford, but suspect he has different taste preferrences. Maybe that much sprouting works for him because he likes heavy, sticky brick bread. I can see it.
Anyway, I think the longer, cooler cooking time is meant to preserve the enzymes in the sprouted grain. If I remember right, they are killed at temp somewhere around 120 degrees (F), so if you are really concerned, use a thermometer to check the internal temp of the bread as it bakes. But honestly, I am more concerned with the taste and texture, and not worried about the extra enzymes, so I cook at a much higher temp. Bread baked at low temps like that (especially sprouted bread) will be more damp and sticky.
The “covering” of the baking loaf, I suspect, is to keep the top from drying out during the long bake. Any pieces of grain on the surface of the loaf that were not thoroughly ground will bake up hard as pebbles unless covered.
As for “turning” the loaf, I have no idea. Maybe just a tradition left over from when they were cooking it on top of hot coals?
Good luck! It sounds like a good project.
Hey Calamity Jane,
Thanks for getting back me. I appreciate your feedback.
The enzyme preservation isn’t something so important for me either. At that temperature it’d probably take 4 hours or so to cook the load to a stodgy mass.
I’ll persist with my attempts. Makes sense about the covering of the loaf, and may give the loaf a turn half way through, as the bottom tends to be far wetter that the top..
The big thing for me to try next time is the very small sprout length. I yet to stick to that so strictly yet. I’ll be camping for the next month, so will be no baking. but look forward to having another few goes once i’m back.
I’ll keep you posted. I’m still optimistic of being able to create a cut-able, delicious purely sprouted loaf.
Many thanks
Colm
Calamity Jane!
I’ve been getting better at making this bread; it’s a staple now and I can’t imagine buying bread again. Ew. I just wanted to say that I read somewhere that the old fashioned crank-handle meat grinder would work for grinding the sprouts, and it definitely does. It’s very easy. I run it thru twice and then continue with the process. As it’s been hot here and I didn’t want to use the main oven, I even tried it in a bread machine once, just adding flour to the mixture until the dough looked right, and that worked GREAT. The recipe is really not fussy. In fact, once I forgot to add YEAST, LOL. At the very last minute I decided to KNEAD IT IN, what a fiasco! But…the loaf turned out great! I’m finding sprouted wheat bread to be very forgiving, one that allows me to try practically anything, including sourdough.
I completely agree about the sprout length. I started out with the bogus Mother Earth News recipe which recommends sprouting until the tail is TWICE the length of the berry. The results were bland, tasteless. Upon further research of how to malt barley, I concluded that as soon as the tips emerge, sprouting is done. This insures maximum sugar production upon malting.
I have been reading a bit about coconut flour. Has anyone tried that rather than white flour?
My grinder is on the way, but This is my second try with the blender.
.. third .. third try
first one with the proper yeast …
I had a mix of grains: wheat, barley, spelt, millet and lentils but they have been in the cupboard for several years. I figured they would still be good to go and soaked them. nadda. no sprouting action at all. they smell great but should i just throw it out and start again or is there something I can use this soaked menagerie in?
Hi
HELP i can do all the sprouting but i have a big problem when I put it in the oven the bread sticks so much i cant get it of the baking paper or the tin or anything. I have tried all sorts of things and it just sticks. Is this because my sprouts are to long before i bake or i have not ground it enough, because when it is baking all this sticky stuff comes out and it sticks like glue. Driving me mad – Oh it tastes good very sweet please help ?
hmm, i once had that problem with a glass bread pan, but never with metal…. are you greasing the pan generously? i had a friend once who swore by using butter to grease the pan first, then painting oil over the butter with a brush. two layer protection. otherwise, all i can think is that you have a bum pan. try a new one.
It should be quite sticky. You should bake it as low and slow as possible. It was traditionally baked in the hot sun. The idea is to dehydrate it while retaining its nutritional value. You could put a sheet of well-greased baking parchment under it. Nothing sticks to that.
Also, grind it when the grains have just sprouted. You lose sweetness if you wait longer. Grind it to a fairly coarse dough. Just enough that it sticks together.
Not only do I love the apron, I love this post. I’m at Amazon right now placing things in my basket as I write. I really did need a new juicer!
Awesome recipe and instructions. I have been baking bread 40 years but never tried this. I feel confident that this will work for me and utilize my wheat berries… thank you for your contribution.
I can’t wait to try this recipe!! Do you soak everything together? Also, all I have is a Vitamix. Would it work to grind the sprouts with it? Thanks!
I wish you could see the sprouted bread I just made. I tweeked your recipe a bit, but the idea of the food processor was genius! Thank you! I came here to post, but I guess that’s not possible.
I love this post! I do have to say that I am not a seasoned bread baker by any means as I started about a year ago, but my sprouted breads (started those only a month ago) are by far the best. Thank you for your post and your updates! Such a big help.
Just finished reading all of the post from 2012 on. I have been making bread for 70+ years and have tried a lot of things over time. I sprout my own wheat and freeze it most of the time. I also dry it very slowly in the oven.
This is too astrid Krag-Olsen, Do not ever wash your bread pans! Just ask any commercial bread baker, they have an exception from the health department to reuse the pans with out washing them. Just grease (I use Crisco), if the dough is wet dust the greased pan with white flour as you would if baking a cake. I think the last time I had a loaf stick was more than 30 years ago, about the time I stopped washing all my metal bread pans. I personally do not think that a glass pan works as it is an insulator.
BTW: I grew up on a farm and during the war we could get all the flour you want but not store bought bread. I still use my nother’s big bred pan as it make a three pound loaf. WE made our own and made our own butter and traded our beef and chickens for pork with another farmer. My fathers only complaint was the shortage of whisky – you guessed it we had a neighbor who made that also. We had a great barter system going. Only rural Michigan had it all.
It’s 4 hours into soaking and I’m already seeing 1/8in sprouting. Is this normal??
I’m 4 hours into the soaking and I’m already seeing 1/8in tail on some of the grains. Is this normal??
I am so glad I found this post! I’ve been wanting to make wheatberry bread for the longest time. When I was in Germany, the bread there is extremely dense, brick-like actually, but I rather liked it, and I believe I could replicate it pretty closely using this method. It’s real by-God bread!
Made this with a few small changes. Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wish there was a place to post pictures! It’s beautiful.