Do you sprout wheat at home? I love making homemade bread, pizza crust, and more from freshly milled wheat berries. The flavor is just amazing!
For many, however, wheat is hard to digest. The jury is still out on whether it has to do with the wheat itself being in everything, or if it’s something that we have done to the wheat. Surely, hybridization and chemicals sprayed on the wheat can’t be good for us. Even most organic wheat berries have been hybridized and changed from what they originally were many years ago.
Sprouting wheat may be able to help. It is the act of making a seed into a living food that for some will be easier to digest. And it’s easy to do. Once the process starts, you will have sprouted grains in as little as 2-3 days. What you need to get going:
- Wide mouth jar with a sprouting lid
- Another option is to use a wide mouth mason jar, and add a sprouting lid
- Wheat berries or other grain berries such as spelt, kamut, or barely
- Cool water
- A place to drain your jars
Directions for how to sprout wheat at home:
- Add 2 cups of grains into your jar. Be sure to leave plenty of room, and only fill the jar 1/2 way. They will expand when they have soaked for a while.
- Add cool (not cold) water to cover at least 4 inches above the grains.
- Allow to sit for 12-24 hours, depending on temperature. In warmer weather, you will want to drain them quicker and more often.
- Drain, then rinse well. Do this by adding water to fill and then tilting the jar on its side to drain well. I leave it to drain in the sink for about 30 minutes, then set it on its side.
- Every 12 hours, repeat the process.
After two days, your wheat will begin sprouting and look like this:
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- Carefully remove them from the jar and either place in a dehydrator, or on a cookie sheet in a single layer.
- If you are putting them on a cookie sheet, place in an oven with just the pilot light on overnight.
- You don’t want to heat the sprouts as they are now a “living food” and extreme heat can kill them.
As for how to eat sprouted wheat, once dry completely, you can proceed to use them just like regular grains. I mill mine right away, and use just like regular flour.
Other uses for what to do with sprouted wheat berries:
- Add to salads or sandwiches for a nutty crunch (get more sprouted wheat berries recipes here)
- Add to bread recipes
- Keep it growing and use it for wheat grass
- make into a sprouted breakfast porridge
- make rejuvelac (get the recipe here)
- Grow fodder to feed your animals (get the tutorials here)
What are some reasons you would want to sprout wheat? How would you use it in recipes? Be sure to pin this for later!
Heather’s homesteading journey started in 2006, with baby steps: first, she got a few raised beds, some chickens, and rabbits. Over the years, she amassed a wealth of homesteading knowledge, knowledge that you can find in the articles of this blog.
Learn more about Heather and the rest of the writers on this page.
Great method.
This something I want to try. I recently read a book titled Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan. She suggests eating sprouted grain breads as part of her 4 pillars of ethnic cuisine. Thanks for the post.