Rejuvelac Recipe

February 22, 2012

I made Rejuvelac every day for five years, then grew tired of it. This is natural – David Wolfe, author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, wrote in an issue of Just Eat An Apple magazine, that for him too fermented foods were a transitional food but aren't part of his diet today.

Because of its high Vitamin E content, Rejuvelac is particularly good for blending seed milks and sauces, and for making seed yogurt and cheese. Vitamin E stops the fats from oxidizing.

Buy three wide-mouthed one-quart mason jars and sprouting lids – best are these Stainless Steel Sprouting Screens or Plastic Sprout Lids.

Or, in place of lids, you can use wire mesh (mosquito netting) or nylon mesh.

For wire mesh, push out the gold disk in the mason jar lids and replace it with a cut-out circle of wire mesh.

With nylon mesh, cut it so it hangs over over the edge of the jar, then hold in in place with the jar's outer lid (or with an elastic band). I prefer elastic bands because the lid goes rusty.

My first choice is the Plastic Sprout Lid here. It never rusts and is easy to keep clean. The sprouts don't touch the lid, except briefly when you rinse them.

Use organic soft pastry wheat, gold in color, not red winter wheat – the red is for wheatgrass, the gold for Rejuvelac and baking crackers and breads (raw or cooked).

Here's a good source for Organic Soft White Wheat Sprouting Seeds for Rejuvelac. Funny they call it white when it's more gold. It has *nothing* to do with white bread!

Here's how you grow grain sprouts in jars (and legume sprouts like mung and lentil, but for baby green sprouts it's best to use the GoGreen Automatic Sprouter):

• Measure out your grain onto a plate and remove stones
• Pour the grain into a mason jar, cover it with 2 inches of water, and leave soaking for 8-12 hours
• Pour off the soak water onto your plants (indoor or outdoor) – they love the minerals
• Place the jar upside down on your dish drainer at a 40° slant for a few minutes, so all the water drains out
• Place the jar on its side, shake it a little so the sprouts are evenly spaced along the jar
• Rinse and drain every 12 hours

Rinse means to pour water onto them, then right away drain all the water out of the jar – it's one-second in-out, don't soak again!

This applies only to the *true* grains like wheat, kamut and rye. With the four pseudo-grains (they look like grains but botanically they are not) – amarinth, buckwheat, quinoa, and wild rice – you soak them briefly (buckwheat for 20 minutes, amarinth + quinoa for 2 hours, and wild rice does not sprout).

I mention this in passing. You never use any of these pseudo-grains for Rejuvelac. Legumes you soak for the full 8-12 hours, e.g. overnight or all day while you're at work.

When measuring out my grain, I don't bother to remove cracked or broken grains, they still work for Rejuvelac. In fact, you can make Rejuvelac without sprouting the grain first.

You can use kamut or spelt in place of wheat, for Rejuvelac. Kamut is not as hybridized as wheat, so has more minerals.

Don't use rye. Although ergot fungus can't grow on the hulled rye we use for sprouting (because the fungal spores infect only the stigma of rye's flowers) – nevertheless, mold will grow quicker on damp rye than on any other grain.

Ergot was the first substrate used to make LSD! Brings back happy memories of my hippy days in London :)

Here's a simple way to get a fresh jar of Rejuvelac every day. It's a schedule I developed so no Rejuvelac is ever refrigerated more than 12 hours.

Enzymes and good micro-organisms are at their highest when Rejuvelac is still fermenting. Refrigeration slows down their activity.

(1) – In Jar One, soak one-third of a measuring cup of wheat berries on Saturday night.

Drain all the water out of Jar One on Sunday morning, then rinse and drain on Sunday evening, and again on Monday morning.

Then to begin your Rejuvelac in first jar:

(2) – Fill Jar One with water Monday night. Give sprouts a final rinse before filling jar, to wash away unseen mold (you can't see it with naked eye).

At same time, start Jar Two by soaking seeds overnight Monday to Tuesday morning, then rinse/drain these every 12 hours, morning and evening.

(3) – On Wednesday night, pour off Rejuvelac (fermented water) from Jar One and refrigerate for next day Thursday, refill Jar One with water, leaving in the old sprouts. You use each batch of sprouts twice over to make two jars of Rejuvelac.

Also on Wednesday night, fill Jar Two with water – that's the one with new sprouts. Begin Jar Three, soaking seeds overnight.

On Thursday morning take Rejuvelac out of refrigerator so you always drink it at room temperature.

(4) – On Friday morning pour off second batch of Rejuvelac from Jar One and throw away the wheatberries, rinse out jar. Use Rejuvelac that same day so no need to refrigerate.

(5) [repeat of Step 3] – On Friday evening pour off Rejuvelac from Jar Two and leave in refrigerator for Saturday, refill Jar Two. Fill Jar Three with water. Begin Jar One again, soaking one-third cup of wheatberries in it overnight.

This way you use each jar of wheatberries twice for two lots of Rejuvelac (not three as in Ann Wigmore's method – it gets too weak) and you have a fresh jar every day – for use in blending Energy Soup and seed milk or yogurt.

Notice that the first batch goes for 48 hours (2 days) and the second for 36 hours (1.5 days).

I used to line up my jars in a row, and the one on the right was the one at final stage with its second batch of Rejuvelac. I began each new one on the left.

Good Rejuvelac smells fresh and tastes sour or lemony, tinged with a yeasty flavor. You can smell when it's off. Don't drink it if it smells or tastes iffy.

It's natural for a layer of white foam to form on top, which you can drink or skim off.

In very hot humid mid-summer New York, I left each batch standing only for one day, not 2 or 1.5, because it went off so quickly in that heat.

Rejuvelac can also be made with unsprouted grain but sprouting it brings more vitamins and enzymes to the water.

Sproutman recommends to stir the water twice daily to mix up the enzymes and develop live organisms. I never did because I like to spend the least time possible in my kitchen.

Ann Wigmore writes about Rejuvelac (in Survival with Natural Living Foods, out of print):

• Rejuvelac is rich in proteins, carbohydrates, dextrines, phosphates, saccharines, lactobacilli and aspergillus oryzae. Amylases are derived from aspergillus oryzae and they have the ability to break down large molecules of glucose, starch and glycogens. This is one reason Rejuvelac is an aid to digestion.
• Rejuvelac is predigested – proteins are broken down into amino acids, and carbohydrates into the simple sugars of dextrines and saccharines.
• Protein is a very concentrated food – by predigesting it via sprouting and fermenting, you get your amino acids in easy assimilated form.
• Enzymes in fermented foods help friendly bacteria like lactobacillus bifidus to grow. Lactobacilli give off lactic acid, a natural astringent, which helps your large intestine maintain a healthy, vitamin-producing environment where disease-producing bacteria are unable to grow.

A healthy clean colon full of live friendly micro-organisms is our best source of Vitamin B12. Rejuvelac and the sauerkraut recipes here are a must when you're doing colon cleansing. Also Solgar's vegan multibillion dophilus with FOS has live organisms, I know because I use their capsules to make vegan soya yogurt.