Technique: Sprouted Wheat
How to Sprout Wheat Berries to make Sprouted Wheat Flour:
1. At a local health-food store, purchase at least 2 cups of wheat berries. If your goal for this flour is to make bread or muffins, buy Hard Red Wheat Berries. If your goal is to make pastries, cookies or cakes, buy Soft White Wheat Berries. Either variety will work well to thicken a gravy or casserole.
2. In a two-quart sprouting jar, pour 2 cups of wheat berries. Return the mesh lid to the jar.
3. Fill the jar 3/4 full with filtered water and soak the berries overnight or for 8 hours.
4. After soaking, drain off the soaking water. Rinse the berries by refilling the jar with water and allowing it to overflow until the foam subsides. Drain off the water again and rest jar upside down at a 60˚ angle in a large bowl or like I use above, an old dish rack. When you tip the jar, allow the wheat berries to rest along the full length of the jar, carefully not to fully cover the mesh lid. If using a bowl, make sure the mesh end of the jar is not flush against the bowl. It needs breathing room to prevent mold on the berries.
5. Rinse the wheat berries morning and night until the berries just barely begin to sprout. The little wheat berries look a bit like a brown version of a very small olive with a little pimento sticking out, when they are ready to be dehydrated.
6. Once sprouted, the wheat berries need to be thoroughly dried to prevent mold using either a dehydrator or an oven, both set to 150˚. I use a dehydrator because it can take 10-24 hours to dry the berries, more time than I would like to keep my oven running. Pour the wheat berries onto a mesh dehydrator tray or oven sheet pan, as seen above.
7. Spread the berries evenly using a spatula or your fingers. Dehydrate in the oven or a dehydrator for 10-24 hours at 150˚ until fully dry. Bite down on a kernel to test for dryness. It should be crunchy. Allow to cool fully before storage.
8. Sprouted wheat berries may now be ground in a grain mill using the same technique as un-sprouted wheat berries.
26 comments
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Joti
Hi Molly,
Thanks for posting the technique to sprout wheat.I followed this technique, but the wheat berries did not sprout at all. I soaked them overnight for 8-10 hours, and then rinsed and drained them with water twice a day for the following 2 days….but no sprouting at all! (I covered the jar with a cheesecloth, and kept it in a dark & warm place). What did I do wrong?
I was hoping to sprout wheat until it gets long tails. What type of wheat berries are best for sprouting?
Please reply back….I really need help with this.
Thanks!!April 25, 2011 -
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Molly Chester
Hmmm…. Well, Joti – I would typically think that your home was a little too cool. But, I see that you say “warm”. Other than that, I think I would try a different source for your wheatberries. Try buying ones that come sealed in a bag, instead of bulk. I use bulk all the time, but since you are having trouble, I’d start with the sealed variety. All types of wheatberries sprout. I typically use hard red and soft white, but my mom uses hard white, which also sprout just fine. Let me know how it goes… Warmly, Molly
May 3, 2011
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Courtney
Great site. I just wanted to say wheat berries that have been stored with O2 absorbers and some older wheat will not sprout. There are some different theories going around about that. I put a tablespoon of vinegar in my wheat berries when I soak them and I soak them for at least 18-24 hours before starting to sprout. Maybe this will help you have success. Also, you don’t want to see much sprouting. just the little white tips or strings, If they get over 1/4″ they will get a little bitter. The soak is really what breaks up that phytic acid, and that is really the important part.
July 25, 2015
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Chris
Other sites say to let the berries sprout until the sprout is about as long as the berry or 1/8 to 1/4 inch long. However you said only until the begin to sprout which I interpret as soon as you see the white bulge of the sprout. Does it matter?
August 12, 2011 -
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Molly Chester
Hi Chris, I used to sprout them long, but then I talked to the owners of To Your Health Sprouted Flour Company, and they taught me that all you need is for the sprout the just show the white. At that point, all of the nutrition has been captured, and it will still easily slide into mill grinders. Good luck!
August 15, 2011
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Pamela Patterson
My oven temp only goes down to 170 degrees F, will that be to hot to dehydrate my sprouted wheat-berries?
May 10, 2012 -
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Molly Chester
You can always leave the oven cracked.
July 14, 2012
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Christiana
Hey Molly, great blog post about sprouted wheat berries! In case you haven’t heard, Essential Eating Sprouted Foods has a delicious line of organic, sprouted & kosher whole grain food products such as cereals, pastas and pretzels that digest as vegetables. Check us out at http://www.essentialeating.com!
August 20, 2012 -
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Molly Chester
Love this information. Thanks Christiana! I’ll pass it along to our cook at the farm. She’d love it, too. Best – Molly
October 16, 2012
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Cristine
Your blog inspired me to make sprouted wheat. I feel like a child at Xmas Eve because today I got my dehydrator, my pail of Hard White Wheat, my mason jar, I just finished making the mesh lid for the jar and I soaked my first 2 cups of wheat. I am a newcomer to all this wholesome foods culture and I absolutely love it.
December 6, 2012 -
Kara
I have heard that once the wheat berries are sprouted they are then a vegetable and no longer have gluten. Is that true? I want to try this out and grind it up for bread. My son is on a gluten and dairy free diet, so I’m a bit skeptical. ;) Thanks!
May 1, 2013 -
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Molly Chester
Hmmm… I believe sprouted grains to still have gluten. I would proceed with caution! Let us know how it goes for you.
July 4, 2013
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Vanessa
Thankyou for the great info!! I was curious: what kind of mesh dehydrator screen did you use? We have a cabelas commercial style dehydrator, would what you used be appropriate for my square shaped dehydrator? Thanks!
May 3, 2013 -
Natalie
Thanks for all of the above info. You say to dehydrate them for 10-24 hours. What if they are done while you are sleeping? I’m guessing you don’t stay awake to watch them.
May 8, 2013 -
Lori
In the spring I use my oven with the interior light left on and door shut to germinate seeds and it works great. I was wondering it that would be a good option for sprouting?
May 23, 2013 -
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Molly Chester
Possibly. You do want a bit of airflow to prevent mold, but give it a whirl.
July 4, 2013
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Diane
I sprout hard white wheat berries, organic of course, in a big bowl. I half fill the bowl with berries, fill to the top with water, cover with plastic wrap loosely, place a kitchen towel over that and leave on the counter overnight. The next day I rinse them and put them back in the bowl and cover them with plastic wrap…again loosely with a towel over it and leave overnight again. The next day I have sprouted berries. They get dried in a dryer overnight at 115 degrees. When they are really crunchy and cool they go in a jar until I am ready to make flour out of them. I use a Vitamix with the dry container and the smell is just amazing! They grind in under a minute and it makes the best bread ever!
November 30, 2013 -
M.G.
Can I use the dried sprouted wheat kernels in bread without grinding it into flour? I just bought a bag hoping to use it in my bread…….I don’t want it to be so hard in the bread that it is hard to eat…….do you think soaking the kernels before adding to the bread would work?
May 3, 2014 -
Ray
Just want to add to Diane’s post above, I also use a vitamix with the dry blade container. I was concerned about the flour getting warm, but if you freeze the dried grains first, you can then blend/grind them for much longer before they get warm.
November 28, 2014 -
Judy J Johnson
How many days is it suppose to take to sprout the wheat to have tails of about 1″?
March 9, 2015 -
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Molly Chester
It depends upon your weather or temp of your house. Anywhere from 1 – 3 days.
March 22, 2015
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Esther
What to do about molding sprouted wheat? I sprouted white wheat berries, and laid them out to dry. Behold, the sprouted matrices are now lined with a fuzzy white web.
What do you think of grinding and baking the flour anyway?July 18, 2015 -
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Molly Chester
Hmmm…. I would probably start over, unfortunately.
October 11, 2015
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Pixie
Hi Molly,
I stumbled upon your blog this morning and have spent the last few hours joyfully going through your posts and recipes. I was gifted Nourishing Traditions a few years ago by a nutritionist friend of mine (best gift ever!) and since then I have incorporated many traditional food prep. practices into my diet. What a difference it has made my my (and my partners) life. I too was a recovering vegetarian and it took quite a while to restore balance in my endocrine system. But by incorporating healthy animal fats, meat and lacto-fermented foods into our diet I can say that we have never felt better. We try to soak the majority of our grains (and nuts and seeds) and make our own fully fermented sourdough bread. I haven’t yet tried making sprouted flour, but it would certainly be convenient for when I want to make something without soaking it for 12 hours. I am wondering if you have tried grinding your sprouted grains in the vita mix ‘dry’ container? I plan on eventually purchasing a grain mill but haven’t had a chance yet.
thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and recipes…you are truly an inspiration :)
Molly Chester
I have not tried that yet, Pixie. If you use the vita-mix with unsprouted, I would assume that dehydrated sprouted grains would react the same! Hope that helps, and thanks so much for the kind words…
Brooke
I have tried grinding the sprouted berries in the Vitamix dry container 6 hrs after I let them dry and they turn to mush. They need to be fully dry from a dehydrator for the berries to grind to flour. Hope this helps!