Sprouted whole grain bread vs milling flour

For all questions related to whole grain baking I would recommend obtaining The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (ISBN 0394724348).

It has been some time since I read their chapter on sprouted grains, but if I remember correctly the story is this: at the moment the grain sprouts, it is once again a growing organism and therefore is more nutritious than dried grain. So if you like the taste, sprouted grain can be very good for you.

However, after the sprouts grow a certain amount, the whole organic mass of used-up berry and sprout starts to change flavour. The resulting flavour can be unpleasant. And some spouts produce chemicals that are actually unhealthy for humans, particularly in large quantities. So you have to watch that line.

I hope that is of some use.

sPh

I grind my own Whole Grain flour and sprout. I agree that the Laurels book is excellent if you want to get into whole grain baking.

Whole Grain Flour does not keep  well and it is my understandaing the enzymes etc start to degrade within a few hours. We grind the flour immediately before going into the mixing bowl so we believe our bread is the taste of a cornfield.

When sprouting we only sprout for about 24 hours  (in this climate (Malaysia)). Just until we can see the shoot starting to appear . Some say wait till the shoot is about 1/4 inch, but we find the sprouts get a bit smelly and are very sticky ( lots of sugar I guess).

There are quite a lot of recipes for "  Ezekiel 4:9, a flourless low glycemic bread that is "Sprouted 100% Whole Grain Bread"" if you search for them on the net.

However is their bread light and fluffy or the heavy one? I belive the light and fluffy one is made from sprouted flour (although they call it flour free) , which is dried and then ground to a powder (flour).

The heavy one is normally ground up fresh sprouted wheat.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards,

Martin Prior 

www.bakerette-cafe.com