Making bread from sprouted wheatberries

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I am having difficulty getting bread made from sprouted wheat berries to rise. My yeast is fine. I have tried adding a little salt, a little sugar, and a little baking soda to alter the chemistry with no real luck. The wheat berries sprout well and grind down to a nice dough. There is a commercial product which is made with no flour but it is rather pricey. If anyone has a suggestion or a recipe, I would appreciate help. Thanks.

-- Cindy Clark (chclark@snet.net), August 09, 2000

Answers

Are you trying to make a bread similar to Ezekial or more like Essene? Ezekial breads are very similar in texture to breads we're familiar with, so I assume that's what you mean. Essene breads are small, dense, almost cake-like in texture. I'll look through some books at work today and see what I can come up with.

-- Cathy Horn (hrnofplnty@webtv.net), August 10, 2000.

Try adding some gluten to the mix. Sometimes you can get it at the grocery store and I know you can get it at a health food store. It assists with the raising of the dough and adds something ( I forget). It works really well and you onlyh need to add a couple of tablespoons to the dough. lynne

-- lynne (leaves8@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000.

Hi Cindy, like the post above the sprouted wheat bread recipe, (Essene)with no added flour to it turns out chewy with a crust that is firm. It is very tasty yet you couldn't eat much of it. (My kids loved it when I made it into to tortillas and fried them on a lightly oiled griddle. In fact with the Y2K preperations, I taught lots of my friends how to make flour tortilla's, much less work, with much less ingredients, and so versitile! I have a cool little paperback book that was really cheap from Hoegger, How to Live on Wheat by John Hill, a great compact book. All recipes for more traditional breads, made with sprouts, have the addition of some flour, up to 1 cup per loaf. ie...Sprouted Wheat Bread Five cups of sprouted and ground wheat paste, 1 cup flour (he is big on TVP, roasted soy flour or sweet lupine, though I have used regular white flour, bread flour and ground wheat flour) 1 tablespoon of yeast 1 tsp salt, and honey is optional, actually I think some sweetner is mandatory to proof your yeast, but then that is a very old fashion notion... that I always do:) Mix all ingredients into a stiff dough adding a small amount of dry flour to absorb some of the excess liquid. Keep adding dry flour a little at a time until the dough losses most of it's stickiness. Knead thoroughly and allow to rise to about twice the orginal size. Very important or you will have small dense loaves once again! Bake at 300 degress for about 45 minutes. Hope some of this helps..Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000.

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