Hey hows it going everyone?
So I've been reading a lot lately about sprouting and decided to give it a try. So I started with almonds. I followed the instructions on this site. Now when it says they're sprouted after a day should there actually be a sprout sticking out of it, or is just a sort of nutrition change the nut goes through? Because mine just got a little bigger and moister, not really any different then just soaking them. So did I do something wrong? I soaked about a half cup of almonds for 11 hours, rinsed them off and sampled a few. Then I soaked a %100 cotton cloth and put on a plate, laid out almonds on top, soaked a second cloth and put on top. about 12 hours latter the cloth was still a little moist so I sprinkled some more water on top. Then 12 hours latter I removed the top cloth. The nuts looked the same and tasted pretty much the same as they did after soaking. So what did I do wrong. The nuts were sold as raw, is there a chance that they weren't? They looked and tasted raw.

Thanks for your help

Andy

Hi Andy,

From your description it sounds like you did more than the minimum necessary. I usually soak the nuts over nut, rinse them well and leave them in a well drained container throughout the day. When I'm in a hurry I just soak them and leave it at that.

If you're in the U.S. it's likely that the almonds were pasteurized even if they were sold as raw, but I can't tell from your description. You should not expect to get much of a sprout from almonds. They should get bigger and moister and you may see a little bit of a bulge toward the narrow tip of the nut. That bulge is the beginning of sprouting. That's as much as almonds are generally sprouted.

I haven't experimented with sprouting the pasteurized "raw" almonds to see if they still get the bulge. If they do it would seem to suggest that the almonds may still be alive.

Organic almonds are pasteurized using a flash steaming process. Whether this is harsh enough to kill the almond I don't really know. Conventional almonds may also be flash steamed, but as I understand it most are gassed instead. The chemical they use is a dangerous known carcinogen, but they hope that most of the chemical will not remain on the nut. This seems to me that it would actually be more likely to leave the almond alive, but with the possibility that the nut will be contaminated with the chemical.

-Frances