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(To buy the REAL FOOD 101 E-book: Traditional Foods, Traditionally Prepared, click here.  Full color photos, step by step tutorials, and more.  Only $14.)

Look at those gorgeous sprouted spelt berries.  They’re alive!  And they are ready to be dehydrated to make sprouted flour.  I like to make sprouted flour every other week or so, and then use it for making bread, pancakes, biscuits, and other baked goods.

As you know, I am transitioning back into grains after doing the GAPS diet for 10 months.  So I have started sprouting my spelt berries again to make sprouted flour.  I’m also signing up for the Healthy Whole Grains E-course, so that I can troubleshoot some of the difficulties I have had working with sourdough, as well as gaining new access to soaking and sprouting tutorials and lots of recipes.

For the last month I have been starting to eat starchy foods and pseudo-grains to see how I did with them.  I tried a bite of potato here and there.  A few weeks ago I tried soaked buckwheat, then soaked quinoa.  I was not having having any reactions to them, whew!

I even bought the Diet Recovery e-book and started to use these new starchier foods to raise my temperature a la RRARF!  This is a protocol from Matt Stone over at 180 Degree Health.  I’m happy to say that my temps were up after only 3 weeks!  But I digress…

So in addition to my return to soaking flour overnight and trying to catch a sourdough starter, I am now back to sprouting grains for sprouted flour.  You can also buy sprouted flour if you want to try it, or you don’t have time to make it.

Plus I was reminded of when my son did GAPS with me from October to December.  When he had come off GAPS, he dove right into a box of wheat crackers and had no reaction at all!  So something happened there, and we are ready to move back to a less strict WAPF diet that includes grains and starches.  W00t!

Many of you might not be able to have grains right now.  After all, nearly every recipe I have put up so far is grain-free.  If that is working for your body, stick with it.  For me, GAPS was what I needed to heal for a few months.

My perspective on GAPS:  I started to crave grains again after about 8 months on the GAPS diet.  I pushed through another round of the Intro diet, and then finally decided that my body was telling me that it was time to transition out of GAPS.  Above all else, listen to your body and be kind to it.  GAPS isn’t about punishment, and it’s not forever.

GAPS is a temporary diet to heal your gut.  Traditional peoples ate grains and were very healthy and free of dental caries.  There seems to be a tendency, especially with the popularity of the primal and paleo diets, to say that grains are bad for you no matter what.  I disagree.  I think they are meant to nourish us, when they are prepared properly.  That’s why I want to take the e-course and start sharing some grain-based recipes here to put in the mix with the grain-free and gluten-free types.

Equipment Needed:

• half gallon glass jars
• wide mouth canning funnel
• sprouting lids like these or these
• pie plates or another flat dish for draining
• small or large dehydrator, like my Excalibur 9-tray model that I love!*
• grain grinder, like my Wonder Mill that I also love or even a hand crank grinder
• whole grain berries such as spelt, soft white winter wheat, teff, kamut, etc.
• filtered water

Sprouted Whole Grain Flour

several cups of raw grain berries
filtered water

1. Using a funnel, pour dry grain berries into a half gallon jar until it is less than half full.
2. Fill with filtered water to the very top and cover with a cloth to keep dust out.  Let soak 8 hours or overnight.  (You can see specific soaking times here, but I just soak overnight to keep things simple.)
   
3. The next morning, pour the water out and rinse the spelt berries one more time.  Then screw a sprouting lid onto the jar.
4. Turn the jar over so that it is upturned but at an angle, such as placing it to drain downward in a pie plate.
5. 2-3 times a day, rinse the spelt berries and then turn over to drain again.  In about 2 days, you should see sprouts starting to grow.  The sprouts are done when they reach the length of the spelt berry.
6. Now you are ready to either use the wet sprouts as is (perhaps for blending up into a bread dough), but I like to dehydrate them so I can make flour, since flour is more versatile.
7. Spread out the spelt berries in a single layer on a dehydrator tray.*  Dehydrate at least 8 hours, but I find that I need 12 hours or so to have no trouble putting the sprouted berries through my grain grinder.
8. Now your spelt berries are ready to grind!  Make sure you follow the directions for your grain grinder so you do not overfill it.  I also find that putting them through my grinder immediately from the dehydrator really helps them grind without a hitch.  And make sure to put them into your grinder by handfuls, so that you can de-clump them (they tend to get tangled up in each other’s sprouts).
9. After you grind the flour, sift it to remove as much of the bran as possible.  Bran is hard to digest even when it’s sprouted, and there were traditional methods of grain preparation that included sifting out the bran before consuming.  Sifting won’t remove all the bran, but it will get some of it out.  As you can see, I need a more tightly woven sieve!
   
10. There’s your flour!  Either use immediately, or store it in the freezer.
    

*You can use your oven in a pinch, but I don’t recommend it.  Set it as low as possible (most ovens are 170 degrees), and dehydrate until the wheat berries are dry and crunchy again.

This post is a part of Sunday School, Weekend Gourmet, Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, The Mommy Club, Healthy2day Wednesday, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Full Plate Thursday, Fresh Bites Friday, Fight Back Friday, and Friday Food Flicks.