Sprouted Wheat bread troubleshooting

A few days ago I did sprouted wheat bread with the fine attachment on my Kitchen Aid, running it through only once. This is the picture. It is pretty course and a bit heavy. I ate it. I didn't mind the hearty grains...but it wasn't as light as the hand ground dough that I always ran through twice, or the dough that I made in the food processor. It has been a grand new adventure having the machine grinder. Miss the first posting? sprouted wheat bread with a meat grinder . I figured a few new things out today.


First however...

I have to do a shout out to one of my peeps. Her blog is called Adventures in Self Reliance. Love ya Angela! An adventurous soul and kindred spirit in so many ways! She has been very good about writing me and getting advice on her sprouted wheat bread. This time she sent me pictures and wanted help trouble shooting. This next picture is my sprouted wheat bread from today. Run through the fine attachment for my meat grinder with the Kitchen Aid twice. I have decided that I will forever run it through twice, even though one of my other wonderful readers runs hers through only once, I think either my machine is different, or I haven't been running it through with the speed setting fast enough.

So...this is what it should look like. Texture is light and fluffy without huge hunks of wheat in there. They look more like nuts. I did grind the raisins with this one too, and I may forever do it that way. Sorry Tara. I like raisins.

The slices should be a reasonable bread thickness...

The raisins help it brown a little better, but I also have been spreading a little butter or oil over the top before baking.

These are Angela's pictures...hopefully she doesn't mind:


This dough has gone through the Kitchen aid fine attachment only once. We know her sprouting time was right because the wheat berries didn't taste sweet.

I'm adding a note here that I hesitate to do, only because so many people are bent on having the sprouts. It is possible to make this bread with a higher level of success if you kill the sprouting action by soaking the wheat in water that is boiling hot (the whole soaking bowl in the microwave for 5 minutes works great). I don't do it very often, but if you are finding it particularly difficult to get the timing right on the sprouts...this will give you a much better result. Soaked 12-24 hours then ground and made into dough. You can't call it sprouted bread, but you can call it whole grain (it's more of a "mash" than a sprout...technical stuff, huh?)

Do you see the large kernels of wheat? When it is ground correctly, it will not look that dense. I will personally look dense...but it's just a phase. Really.

Angela's other main concern was that the dough didn't brown. This dough is very lean. There is no added fat whatsoever. That, along with the low sugar content, does not contribute to a very brown crust. It helps to give it that light spread of butter/oil on top before baking.

This is what the top of her bread looked like:

The other thing to look at is the pan size and be sure it is 8 inches by 4 inches. Most importantly for these loaves as the larger pans will give too far a stretch and make it really difficult to get a good shaped loaf. It should curve nicely, not be totally flat (Oh I do so want to comment on my sister's chest right now...)

Good luck Angela! Keep me posted on your continued efforts...and thank you again for the pictures that will help many others get a better idea of what to do!