A bread I will never bake again. (100% sprouted grains)
100 % sprouted grains? 'Sounds great and interesting', I said to myself and printed the Recipe of Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads a couple weeks ago. This weekend I gave it a try.
I sprouted my grains as indicated. They all had cute little white tails and were pleasant to chew. I would have better kept them as a addition to my breakfast cereals instead of trying to make them into a bread.
"grind the grains into a pulp as fine as possible. If the grains warm up to much, let them rest for ten minutes and continue when cooled. A meat grinder works even better" - That's what Reinhart wrote. I should have been an english native to know what exactly a food processor is. I tried everything, and everything failed.
my kenwood mixer . . .
the mixer which normally fixes everything, the legendary bamix . . . 
The bamix addon grinder . . .
even the kenwood grater . . .
and last but not least, in desperation, I tried it with a passevite.
I fought about an hour, ended up with my bamix. All the other things blocked because of this doughy/grainy mass. My bamix just got very hot, so I decided to call it for good, even though there were still some whole grains. I added yeast, honey, salt, water and Vital Wheat Gluten, then fermentation, shaping, proofing, baking, cooling, slicing.
The result of this struggle? My bamix is somewhat weird. The exchangeable blades are very hard to remove and to put on again. (I hope my mom won't find out.) I washed kitchen equipment for about an hour. And I've got a bread which is jar-muscle-excercise. It is light, but the grains . . . Flavorwise, it's just bread. seriously, I had much better whole grain breads. I don't notice an exciting difference trough the sprouting and because of the considerable amount of yeast added, no other interesting flavors emerged. Even my family noticed a "lack" in flavor compared to other breads I bake.
You wan't to see pictures?I know the bread looks decent, but before you try it: Think about what gear you've got. 
Salome
Comments
Sometime ago I made a white flour bread with 20% of the mass made of sprouted wheat; well, it was really delicious, full of flavor. Maybe the sprouts must be diluted to give the best of themselves?
Your bread looks very good, especially for a 100% sprouted grain bread. I'm not sure sprouted grains make the best tasting bread...the whole idea about sprouted grains is the nutritional advantage, if there is any. The sprouting is supposed to help enzymes and nutritional aspects of the grain more digestible and available. But then the grains are baked which supposedly damages any enzymatic advantages????
Maybe a few sprouted grains sprinkled on a salad would be nutritious and good...add a little crunch to the salad???
I've never noticed that Sprouted Grain Bread bought at the local healthy market tasted that great anyway.
It seems you used every contraption other than a food processor.....Maybe google "Food Processors" and see what one is. They are quite handy in the kitchen....great for salsas, pestos, and processing canned tomatoes for sauce.
Although I've never made the Reinhart's sprout bread, I have made a very similar recipe from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. The first time I tried it I didn't have a food processor and didn't really want to buy one, so I somehow convinced myself that my blender would do the job. That definitely was not the case. After having even less success with a grater, I ended up grinding the sprouted berries in half-cup batches in my coffee grinder.
As such, I can certainly relate to the long time required and the huge mess, but I have to disagree with you when it comes to flavor. I have found 100% sprouted wheat bread to have a very unique flavor, which I would describe as somewhere between wheat and vegetables. I don't think that the large amount of yeast in Reinhart's recipe is a flaw; the flavors should have developed during the time that the wheat spent germinating. I agree with you on the relatively tough texture, but then I never add gluten, so my sprouted bread comes out much denser than yours.
In any case, I'm sorry to hear that the results were not to your liking, but I thought you'd like to know that you're not the only one who has tried to make this bread without a food processor. :-)
By now I know very well, what a food processor actually is. ;-) But I think we've already got to much kitchen equipment, more or less everything but just not a food processor. (We've even got a avocado slicer. That crazy is my good old mother.)
I'm not angry or very frustrated about this bread, I actually think that it was kind of fun to have a less positive experience with bread. It was simply ridiculous. . . ;-)
I use sprouted grains (such as wheat, quinoa...) often as an add-on in cereals or salads and I really enjoy their flavor there. But something just wasn't perfect with this bread, maybe because of the gluten added the flavor "density" was to little. Or I should have sprouted it more. Or . . .
Anyway, I've already got the next bread idea in my head. I hope to be able to post about my own pumpkin amaranth bread soon.
Salome
Salome,
I respect your position, and I am not arguing with it. Nonetheless, after my chef knife I find our food processor the most used tool in the kitchen.
David G
I'll keep that in mind and if I see a good offer or a good used one I might as well pick one - I just realized that after moving out my mom's kitchen equipment will be rather far away. ;-) And I'm moving out "for good" next week . . .
Salome
Check garage sales for a Vita-Mix. Expensive to buy new, I have one given me by a lady who had two she acquired a garage sales: one for $10, the other free. The Vita-Mix might work as a stand-in for a food processor.