Sprouts in jar - the easy way :)

 Have you ever looked the price of sprouts at the store? They certainly charge for the powerful nutrition! They are so easy at home though.

Step 1:
Put a little bit of seeds at the bottom of the jar. They will explode. Don't put many in there. These are broccoli seeds. So yummy!

I think for the pictures below I had a bit more seeds than this shows.

Mountain Rose herbs - I love them!

Step 2:
Fill jar half to 3/4 full with filtered water. I add a few drops of grapefruit seed extract to help ward off mold. You don't want mold.
Allow this to sit for a day or overnight.

Step 3: Put some kind of filtering material on the lid of your jar. On some sprouting site they recommended buying some tulle and using that, since I have some laying around, that was quite convenient. Ultimately I'm going to get a plastic lid though, since the metal ones are prone to rust. The rubber band was ripping the tulle, and seeds would get caught on the side and not stay moist, so just using a rubber band didn't work well. You'll have to experiment. Some people use a cheesecloth, but the kind I have has holes too big for broccoli seeds.

Step 4. Drain the seeds! And place them in a place where they can drain and you won't forget them. A cool dark area is great, but if they'll get forgotten about, then it is better to just have them out where you'll see them.

Tada! A sprouting contraption!

 Step 5: Later that day, rinse again. Here is the big thing with sprouts : you can't rinse too much, but you can rinse too little. I shoot for 3 times a day. Twice a day is the minimum. They sit next to my sink (except for these pictures) so that it is really easy to do.

Look! On day two the sprouts are forming.

 Step 6: Keep rinsing and draining (you don't want them to sit in a puddle, they'll mold.) Usually on the second day, I add a few drops grapefruit seed extract again to the water and let them soak a minute before draining.

Day 3: time for some sun!

Step 7: Also, smell them at each rinsing and look for any signs of mold. If your house is warm, then you know what warm and damp does. If they start to smell just a touch off, I'll do the GSE rinse, and that fixes it. Do note though that the sprouts will get very very tiny hairs that almost look like mold when they need to be rinsed more often. If you look closely, you'll see they're tiny white hairs on the stem of the sprout, not the seed head itself. Just give them more water and they'll be happy.

See, no hairs means well watered sprouts.

 Step 8: When you see the first green leaves, give them a bit of sun here are there. Indirect is best, you don't want them to get overly warm. 

See how much greener they are?

Step 9: These seemed done at the end of the day, day 3. Sometimes they go a full 4-5 days. I rinse one more time, drain well, put on a regular lid, and stick in the fridge. I try to eat these within another 3-4 days, maybe rinse once or twice in there.

Step 10 (optional): If you want to eliminate the seed hulls (those brown pieces), then dump all of the sprouts into a bowl of water and swish them around. I scoop out the brown bits and throw them in compost, and take the sprouts back and forth between two bowls of water to get as much hulls out as I can. Then drain and put back in your jar.

Different sprouts need different amounts of time. For grains and pulses, you generally want the tail to be only as long as the seed itself, or it starts turning bitter. You can look up the best length of time for the seed you are using, or just taste and see when you like it the best. If I recall correctly, certain types of sprouts should be cooked before eating, but a lot of them can be eaten raw.  I particularly like broccoli seeds because they have a bit of spiciness and pep, which is delicious on it's own, but a great addition to a salad or sandwich or soup. Yum!