Everything you didn't want to know about sprouted wheat bread

Our annual Preparedness Fair is coming up and that always makes me think about the 'what ifs' that we may be in for in the future. I have used sprouted wheat as my 'back up' bread ingredient if something like loosing our electricity should happen for a long expanse of time. We don't have a hand grinder, so my wheat would be stuck whole. I had never actually made sprouted wheat bread so I thought perhaps I should give it a run through.

I have experiment 'A' and 'B' so far. I made my first mistake by allowing the sprouts to get too long. They were deemed 'perfect' by me this morning when I checked on them, but they somehow grew 1/2 an inch during the day. I should have put them in the fridge. Actually I should have put a couple of cups of them on a cookie sheet with the oven light on to dry them out this morning so I could run them through the mill when I was making the bread...mistake #2.

(The sprouts are only supposed to be as long as the kernel...)

I realized that if I can't grind wheat because I have no electricity, then how can I grind sprouts? Also, those sprouts that aren't ground are pulverized in the blender, which also takes electricity. What's more is that this bread must bake longer...since I have an electric oven I would have to build a brick oven in the backyard and stoke it for an hour. This bread also rises quicker because of the sprouts, that may be why loaf 'A' is slumped (it also could be because my almost 2 yo decided he would steal my towel that was covering the loaf and pulled it down smearing the loaf sideways). So using the sprouts does not make a good back up.

(Loaf 'A' is on the left, 'B' is on the right)

Neither loaf passed the taste test, unless I piled butter on it, then it wasn't too bad. They are both very moist, I had to put them back in the oven for a bit. 'A' loaf had 1/2 the sprouts and the recipe for 'B' made a smaller loaf.

(Top left is loaf 'A', top right is 'B' and the slice under is from Harrison's last batch he made of just Whole Wheat bread.)

I will continue to experiment because I do like that the gluten level is far less with the wheat sprouted...why (you ask)? Because the sprouting begins enzymatic action that starts to break down the gluten, rendering the wheat more easily digestible. It's also supposed to be more nutritionally dense, although with the baking I would think most of that nutrition is killed. I will keep chipping away at this and updating you as I go along, and if you have any pointers...please share!