It was the nicest kind of serendipity that drew me into working with barley. A friend asked if I could make her some sprouted barley bread. She heard that sprouted grain breads are healthy, and she knows how much I enjoy a challenge.

Naturally, my first stop was TFL. Mini O, how did I miss that you were working with barley, too? I guess I was too focused at that point on "sprouted barley bread" as a search term. I found some references to other barley breads and looked further afield.

I accumulated lots of info about barley in general, its different forms and many uses. See here, http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch410.html if you want to delve further. Who knew what an important role this humble grain played in creating the world we know today?

Didn't find recipes for SBB, but I found references to a product made by the Alvarado Street Bakery of Sonoma County, California. They bill themselves as a global supplier of whole grain breads and bagels. Their loaf has sprouted barley and wheat berries plus a few other things including raisins. That wasn't what my friend had in mind. I kept looking.

My research ultimately led me to some non-sprouted barley breads that I really wanted to try. Also found a sprouted wheat bread recipe I figured I could modify for my friend to include sprouted barley as well. I reasoned that the plain barley breads would teach me what I needed to know to make a success of the sprouted version. Good excuse? We'll see how it works out. My wonderful friend said, "Carol, I'm sure I'll be happy to eat whatever you're happy to make."  :)

First up was Jeffrey Hamelman's Beer Bread with Roasted Barley. That will be my next blog entry – with pictures.

Carol

Experience working with people on improving their health by changing their food has shown that most people respond much better to sprouted grains.  I teach people to sprout nuts, seeds and grains before using them and specialize in making Sprouted Spelt Bread that uses yeast. 

 Many people are also sensitive to commercial yeast and need to avoid yeast based products all together.

 I am starting a new "experiment", if you will, to see if making the sprouted bread with a sourdough starter will work better for people than the standard sprouted bread.

 I have a spelt/rye starter brewing made with Rejuvelac from the spelt grain.  This morning I made sourdough spelt pancakes and muffins.  Today I am working on building enough starter to make the sprouted spelt bread.  Both were delicious!

I notice that the spelt base is much more liquid than the rye.  The rye I used was a sprouted rye flour, the spelt was just a whole grain spelt.

 I would love to hear from others who have tried sprouted sourdough bread.

You can get my sprouted spelt bread recipe on my website, at this link http://recipes.wellnessworkshopcoolsprings.com/sproutedgrains.html

So today i started a double batch variant of a multigrain hearth bread in the PR delayed fermentation/epoxy style. I decided to add 12ozs of cooked brown rice, quinoa, and amaranth grains for extra protein; i've also found that the quinoa sometimes gives a pleasant little *pop* if you happen to catch a grain between your teeth while eating the bread. It's "retarding" now; meaning I got lazy, and didn't want to bake it tonight so i left the bowl in the cold basement to do its thing.