sprouted wheat question
Hello All! I have been looking in to sprouting wheat berries to make a sprouted whole wheat flour for my sourdough breads. There are a couple things that are a little unclear to me though before I jump in.
I know and understand the difference between malt flour/powder and sprouted wheat flour. With that said, when you go to sprout your wheat berries and get to the point of drying them, I know that you are not supposed to go above a temp of like 114F or so if you want to keep the enzymes active, but the question I have is for sprouted wheat flour do you want those enzymes active or not?
I will be planning on using the sprouted wheat flour as a direct replacement for fresh milled whole wheat flour in some cases. I definitely DO NOT want to accidentally create diastatic wheat malt flour.
So, I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on this. I am just afraid that there will be way too much enzymatic activity and create that gummy crumb you get when adding an excessive amount of diastatic malt to it a recipe. Thanks in advance everyone!
Eric
Hi Eric, you might find these threads helpful if you haven't already seen them:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/38521/malt-powder-or-sprouted-flour
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/45389/diastatic-malt-powder-vs-sprouted-flour
i have seen these posts prior to posting. Excellent information in those threads too, but i still haven’t found what I’m wondering about.
how Would drying below a temperature of 115 or 120 be different Than drying above that temperature? I know that above that temperature would destroy the enzymes in the wheat, but arent the enzymes the very things that make the diastatic malt what it is?
if I sprouted the wheat berries and as I dried them, I went above the temperature to deactivate the enzymes.. then added in some diastatic malt powder, that way I can control the amount of diastatic enzymes? Any thoughts?
Check out this link; it sounds like sprouted wheat is indeed also diastatic (active enzymes), so heating or toasting it is probably a good idea. I think there's a difference between sprouting and malting (something about how big you let the sprout get) so that's worth some research too. Dabrownman provided a lot of good information about sprouting and malting in this post; worth a read if you haven't already.