rock hard mung beans interspersed in my sprouts

[jbrie]

Hello,

I sprouted some mung beans for 4 days and they appeared to have sprouted nicely. When I went to eat them though I discovered to my horror that there were a lot of very hard mung beans mixed in. This turned out to be a huge nuisance to eat because I literally had to pick through every spoonful and discard the rock hard beans.

Does anyone know how I can avoid this problem in the future? I purchased the mung beans from bulk barn.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.

[streetsurfer]

You can sort through them on a tray before soaking. Remove any split or shriveled up, chipped, discolored, or otherwise damaged seed/bean. You may not be able to sort out all non-viable seeds.

Floating the finished sprouts in a large bowl of water, swirl them around while a gentle stream of water flows into and over the edge of the bowl. Now lift out all the good sprouts. Often times, any whole unsprouted seeds will settle out, and dislodged hulls should settle or float off the top.

[jbrie]

Thanks Streetsurfer, I'll try this...

[SunshineMN]

Just curious, how long are you soaking them before sprouting? Seeds get softer the longer they soak. Mung beans need at least 12 hours from everything I've read about them. I'd also do a quick screening of the seeds to make sure there aren't any obvious flaws with them. Smaller seeds I don't usually bother checking.

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Hello,

I sprouted some mung beans for 4 days and they appeared to have sprouted nicely. When I went to eat them though I discovered to my horror that there were a lot of very hard mung beans mixed in. This turned out to be a huge nuisance to eat because I literally had to pick through every spoonful and discard the rock hard beans.

Does anyone know how I can avoid this problem in the future? I purchased the mung beans from bulk barn.

Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks.

All mung bean mixes will have about 5% of these rock hard seeds that will not sprout. lt is natures way of preserving these late starters for times of desperate need. Nature keeps these hard seeds for when there may be a shortage around: eg, there might be a famine and everyone has used all the mung bean seeds for sprouting and there is no food left and everything has gone. The hard seeds are thrown out. But one day a flood occurs and those seeds germinate many years later and the old forgotten mung bean crop raises it's head to see another day. lt's natures way to ensure that all the stock isn't used up and that plants will survive into the future.

lf there are too many hard seeds in the batch, look for better stock in future.