Soaking Nuts and Seeds

soaking nuts and seeds

To ease digestion of seeds and nuts, they get soaked.  



I did my first round of soaking a couple nights ago.  I started by soaking sunflower seeds, pecans, walnuts, and macadamia nuts.  I put 3 dry cups into each Ball jar.  I then filled the jars up to almost tippy-top with distilled water.

I ended up soaking these for a while... over the minimum 12 hours recommended...  I read in some other places that it's okay to soak nuts up to 24 hours but, I would definitely need to put less nuts and more water for that to happen in the current size jars that I'm using.  Soaked longer, the nuts would definitely expand right out of the top!  They were getting bound up in the jar as it was...

So, about 15+ hours later...  I opened up the jars and found, what you might expect, expanded nuts and seeds!  Some expanded more than others.  The sunflower seeds, which should have only been soaked for maybe 8 hours, had grown from 3 dry cups to 4+ cups.  The walnuts had expanded from about 3 dry cups to about 3 1/4-ish cups, similar for macadamias, and a little more for the pecans.

pecans on dehydrator tray

After the nuts soaked, I used the sunflower seeds for Renate's Better Than Tuna recipe (see blog entry) and I put the nuts into the dehydrator.  About 2 to 3 hours later, the nuts seemed to be done and I put them into Ball jars in the cupboard...

The temperature I used for the dehydrator was 115 degrees Fahrenheit.  Food enzymes are apparently damaged or destroyed when foods are heated over 115-120 degrees Fahrenheit.  However, dehydration may be a little different, at least initially...  I heard from one of my HHI roommates that HHI Chef Renate mentioned in one of her cooking classes that the dehydrator should be set a little higher initially, as well as warmed up.  The reasoning is...  when raw food, especially wetter food, is first put into the dehydrator, it will be giving off a lot of moisture initially and the food won't really be at the set temperature.  If food takes a while to get up to temp, it may actually ferment, which is not so good.  I found an article online about this. There may also be other more recent articles and recommendations...???  Also reading this article I'm thinking that I should be dehydrating the nuts for a longer period of time!!!   I just quick searched a few different places that also indicate nuts should be dehydrated overnight until completely dry and crisp!  Not sure how I feel about having an electricity pulling machine running all night long...  But, I guess if that's what's best...  Nuts back into the dehydrator!
My cat Peppermint Patty has been most interested in all the new happenings in the kitchen!  She's been checking out all the new equipment! even though she's not allowed on the counters...