How To Grow Your Own Supply Of Broccoli Sprouts In 6 Days

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm always looking for the easiest, simplest way to do things. That's why, after very little consideration, I decided on the Easy Sprout Sprouter. I also decided on alfalfa sprouts first, but that didn't work out very well.

I keep hearing how alfalfa seeds are some of the easiest seeds for sprouting, but I've failed the three times I've tried.

Just after starting my first batch of alfalfa sprouts, I was hearing new stories about how healthy broccoli sprouts are, so I went ahead and bought a whole pound of broccoli seed, and bought a second sprouter.

Buy the time my broccoli seeds and new sprouter arrived, my first batch of alfalfa seed had failed. I chalked it up as a learning process, as I read up more on sprouting and decided that I had gone about growing them the wrong way.

I started a batch of alfalfa and batch of broccoli using the new information I had learned. The broccoli succeeded, but the alfalfa failed, again. At this point, I can't rule out the possibility that my first batch of alfalfa seed was bad, but the broccoli worked out well, so I'm going to focus on that.

The Easy Sprout Sprouter is made of food grade plastic, and comes in six parts. For my process, I only need four parts, the main container, the inner container, the seed screen and the dome cover.

The inner container has a slotted bottom, and the seed screen snaps into place at the bottom. It also has slots, but they are small enough to keep most of the seeds from slipping through into the main container.

The inner container is placed into the main container. The two are designed in a way which allows the inner container to either sit flush within the main, or, with a turn, sit elevated leaving a gap between the bottom of the inner, and the bottom of the main.

Only two table spoons of seed are added, the original instructions I followed for the alfalfa seed had me almost fill the container with seed, as I said, this did not work for me. After reading instructions, I decided to go with a process that only needs two table spoons at a time.

To start, you should probably begin in either in the morning, or at night, so the sprouts will get a full day's worth of sunlight on the last day.

The seeds require a twenty-four hour soak in water. It is important to make sure the seeds remain covered for a full day, some will float, don't worry about them. If you are conservative about your water usage like me, you may want to check throughout the day to make sure they don't soak it all up.

As you can see from the pictures, I've set the inner container fully within the main one, I'll only need to have it set with the gap later on. I also invert the dome, and at this point, there may be no real reason except to indicate that this container is soaking seeds.

If you are concerned about the Easy Sprout Sprouter getting knocked over at this point, there is a solid, flat cover which can be snapped into place.

Don't worry about setting the sprouter in the sun until day five. Sunlight is only need in the finishing stage to give them some green.

Draining is easy, this is the Easy Sprout Sprouter, after all. Just lifting the inner container allows the water to drain through the slots at the bottom, and the water can be dumped from the main container.

We should be seeing some sprouts starting, the more the better.

Besides draining out the water, something should be used to separate the seeds, I use a clean fork. We don't want the seeds to clump, and stick together. This also gets more water off of them, the container can also be shaken at this point to remove more excess water, and the fork can be used to push seeds off the sides back to the bottom.

Even though they needed to be broken up and separated, they should all be back together at the bottom when finished this stage.

Now they will sit for another twenty-four hours, with the inner container raised up, this allows for a little more water to escape, but also allows for the build up of humidity, and a natural air flow. Either the dome, or flat,vented cover can be used at this point. I used the dome, but since I'm not growing the same amount of sprouts as instructed by the Easy Sprout Sprouter, I probably do not need the extra growing room.

Some instructions say to rinse the seeds every twelve hours, but the instructions with the Easy Sprout Sprouter indicate that less rinsing is required.

I decided to just do a "mini-soak" and drain once a day instead. During the mini-soak, I use a fork to break up the seeds again. The Easy Sprout Sprouter instructions also recommend using centrifugal force to help drain the seeds. This can be done by sealing the Sprouter with the solid, flat lid, and placing it in something like a mesh bag or sock then swinging it to produce an effect like using a salad spinner.

I did do this with the alfalfa seeds, but decided against doing it with the broccoli. I'm trying to do this with as little effort as possible, after all.

The sprouts are really noticeable now, just about half way there already!

We are really getting somewhere now!

Hard to believe that there are this many sprouts in just four days, but there they are!

During this mini-soak, I begin removing the empty hulls. The hulls were the outside of the seeds, and won't hurt you to eat them, the sprouts just mainly look better without all these little brown things in them.

The ones that float tend to stick to the sides, and can be easily taken out with a fork, or clean fingers. I use a combination of a fork, and my fingers.They'll pretty much stick to either, but so will the smaller, lighter sprouts that are floating to the top at this point, so I try to make sure that I'm mostly removing the hulls, and knock the sprouts back into the container.

After I drain the water, I still want to agitate the sprouts, and for me, the fork remains the easiest thing to use to break up the sprouts when I separate them. Don't worry about touching them too much, especially not with the fork, the sprouts are very hearty at this point, and can handle getting worked around a bit.

On day five, I take the whole mass of sprouts out, and put them in a cereal bowl. I make sure to leave as many of the hulls at the bottom of the container as I can so I can rinse them out separately.

I fill the bowl with water, remove more hulls and break up the sprouts. The broccoli sprouts are really smelling like fresh broccoli now. At this point with the alfalfa sprouts, I was smelling a distinct rotten smell, and gave up, but these smell good enough to eat right now.

I put the dome cover on, and set them in a place close to a window to catch some sunlight so they'll develop more of an appealing green color.

It really is amazing how many sprouts you can grow in just six days. I'm actually filling a 20 ounce (about 600 ml) container. At this point, I'm careful not to bruise the sprouts, so I won't be packing them very tightly, although I could probably press the sprouts and add more, if I wanted.

If you want green sprouts, try to time your growing process so that the sprouts get as much sunlight as possible on the last day. If you feel they aren't green enough, give them another mini-soak, drain then set out for another day.

The important thing at this point is to make sure they are dry before storing. the Easy Sprout Sprouter can be used for storage, but I'd rather clean it out so I can have it ready to start the next batch so they are ready by the time these run out.

They should last about two weeks in the refrigerator, if you don't eat them all first!

I try to eat some each day, so mine don't usually last a full two weeks. Besides adding them to a tossed salad, I find they go great as a garnish to a coleslaw, or potato salad. If I'm not having a salad, sometimes I take a large pinch of sprouts and add a little bit of my favorite salad dressing to them.

They taste much like what you'd expect raw broccoli to taste like, and I like raw broccoli, so I also enjoy just eating them plain.

How To Grow Sprouts: Grow Your Own Broccoli Sprouts
by CleanerLife
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
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