Sprouting wild rice....no luck

[RawSinger]

I wanted to make Alissa's wild rice salad which requires sprouted wild rice. Now I'll admit that I didn't rinse as much as I should have but the rice didn't sprout AT ALL. So I dumped that batch. I tried it again and followed the sprouting directions to a T....still no sprout at all on the rice. That batch went into the garbage as well. Sorry, if something doesn't work twice, I'm not trying it again. So what was wrong with the rice? Could it only be due to it being old or are there other possible causes? I mean, I bought the wild rice from a large Health Food Store in a pretty major city and I didn't think the turnover there was that low. It's a wee bit frustrating Thoughts?

[shashibala]

Rhio from Rawfoodinfo said: " *Wild rice has been parched before you purchase it. In the raw community it is generally known that wild rice is not raw but some do use it occasionally. We use the word sprout in relation to wild rice because we're using the sprouting procedure to soften the wild rice AS IF we were sprouting it, but it does not sprout.

Some things to check when "sprouting"* wild rice are:

1) Wash the wild rice before soaking it.

2) Make sure that you have good air circulation in the room where the rice will soak and sprout.

3) When soaking wild rice, change the water frequently enough to keep it fresh. Keeping the water fresh prevents the rice from fermenting. In New York, I only change the water twice in two days, but in other parts of the country or world, it may need to be changed more often, depending on ambient air factors.

4) Make sure that when "sprouting" the rice, you rinse it at least twice each day.

5) After rinsing the rice, drain it well. Do not leave any part of the rice sitting in water. This would allow it to ferment and spoil the whole batch.

The only other thing I can think of is that the wild rice was old to begin with. Try to buy the freshest wild rice you can find.
You would not refrigerate the wild rice until after it had softened up and became "chewable." At that time, if I'm not using it right away, I usually store it in a glass, wide-mouth jar, and cover the rice with filtered water. It will last a few days in the refrigerator this way. Even in the refrigerator though, change the water every other day to keep it fresh."

I also read somewhere that if the wild rice is black it has been heated. I think it is green when raw. I haven't tried to use wild rice myself. Good Luck!

[RawSinger]

Good to know all of this...thank you very much for your thorough reply! The wild rice I bought was black. I wouldn't really know where to find green (raw) wild rice. I've never even seen it before. I don't think I'll bother with that recipe if it's not raw. Thank you, though.