Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour?
A friend of mine showed me a newly discovered product from the bulk food baking section of a local store. It's called Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour. I was wondering how this compares to malt powder because I've made my own malt powder following instructions found on the web and the process is simply a matter of sprouting wheat berries and then dehydrating them and then grinding them. So logically it seems like this product should be quite similar to malt powder. Does anyone know how closely related they would be? Could I use some of this in bagel recipes in place of malt powder? Would I use the same quantity? (Reinhart's recipe only calls for 2 teaspoons of malt powder.) Any other recommendations on how to make best use of this product?
I have been using Sprouted whole wheat flour in place of regular whole wheat flour quite successfully. I have also used sprouted spelt flour. I have used them most successfully in the bread machine. I follow my regular recipe and replace the whole wheat flour with the sprouted.
An excerpt from Modern alternative Mama explaining why one would use sprouted (or soaked or soured flour) :
In traditional cultures, they prepared grains this way — by soaking flour, sprouting the whole seeds (then drying and grinding), or souring them (think sourdough starter). This was something that Weston A. Price, a dentist from the 1930s, noted as he traveled the world, studying the diet of traditional cultures. It’s worth noting that he believed a plant-based diet (similar to what the mainstream tells us to eat now) would be the healthiest, but that’s not what he discovered at all.
If you google why to sprout grains, you will find tons of articles, most will refer to Weston A. Price or other things like traditional, nourishing, etc. It all has to do with phytic acid and gluten.
I did find this on line though :
Diastatic malt powder is powdered malted grain, usually barley, but wheat, and rice may also be malted.
“Diastatic” refers to the diastatic enzymes that are created as the grain sprouts. These convert starches to sugars, which yeasties eat. Maltose, a simple sugar that yeasties love is usually made in abundance by the enzymes. (Source)
Sprouted wheat flour performs the same function and imparts a superior flavour. Commercial manufacturers use barley because it is the cheaper option
This information was from a website jugalbandi.
That was a quick internet search.
Perhaps that is why my sourdough bread does so well when I use the sprouted wheat flour! lol.
Thanks for the comments, Whoops. I made a happy discovery yesterday at one of my local bulk foods stores. They have now started stocking both King Arthur diastatic malt powder and non-diastatic malt powder. So perhaps I'll make two batches, one with diastatic malt powder and one with with sprouted wheat flour and do a taste taste! :)
is sprouted for 4 -5 days under specific temperatures and humidity at different times and the thickness of the pile needs to be about a foot or so. The sprout, not the roots, needs to be at least the length of the grain - usually barley or rye.
Sprouted flour are only about a day old and they are dried when they chit - when the little bit of the first white shoot just starts to show itself. The enzymatic action and flavor this imparts to bread is more than normal flour but nothing like diastatic malt would if used for flour. 4-5 g of that per 800 g loaf is about right to malt the rest of the flour. So sprouted flour isn't all that much different than flour that is malted with diastatic malt. Both make fine bread that will be hard to distinguish.
Hope this helps