Spouted Flour

I am constantly learning. One of my most studied subjects is food. Food is how we get many of our nutrients and our body's fuel.

Since learning to cook traditionally, trying to get the best and the most out of my food, I've had to adapt to soaking batter overnight in order to break down the phytic acid.

This can be inconvenient at times. If you want to bake something now, and haven't soaked anything the night before, then your stuck as far as the phytic acid goes.

Also when it comes to breading things - fish sticks, zucchini, etc. It's a bit difficult to soak the flour in water for that.

Then the community bought a grain-mill. And I started making sprouted flour.

Often, even gluten-sensitive people can tolerate spouted grains and since I'm supposed to avoid gluten, I'm all for this.

Again this is one of my "never measure" things, but it's not exactly a recipe so it doesn't really matter. I like to do as large a batch as I can at one time so it saves work, and saves energy in the dehydrating process.

Soak spelt (or whatever grain you want for flour) overnight in a bowl, covered with water. You will want to make sure that the grain is covered by at least an inch or two, as the grain will absorb the water and expand.

Rinse well the next morning. Now you will want to make sprouts. There are a few methods of doing this.

1. Place inverted in mason jars with screens on top.
2. Place in a sprout bag (I was doing this, but the bags got difficult to clean, the spout ends were pretty gooey)
3. Place in a large bowl/pan

Whichever way you choose do sprout, make sure that they are well rinsed to prevent mold and to retain the moisture needed to sprout the seeds. If in a large bowl you may want to stir a few times so the ones on the bottom get some air too.

When they have a "tail" about 1/4" long (about one to two days) they are now ready to be dehydrated. You do not want them to sprout too long, as they will become more of a plant then a grain and your grain-mill won't like this. If you are grinding in a Vita-Mix, go ahead and experiment with this if you want.

Dehydrate the sprouts in a dehydrator on an oven. Dry on low heat (less than 100 F) to keep the valuable nutrients intact.

When completely dry, grind in a grain-mill. Grain-mills do not like wet grains. Or if you have are fortunate enough to have a Vita-Mix, that works well too.

When ground into flour, I like to put into mason jars and freeze the flour. This keeps it from going stale, and I always have healthy spouted flour on hand.