You can download a printable version of these instructions on this page.
When it comes time for more seed, please consider Todd’s Seeds Wheatgrass Seeds, available HERE.
This bag is whole hard red winter wheat, and it does three unrelated jobs. Grow it in a tray and juice it. Run it through a mill and bake with it. Or simmer the berries whole and eat them like farro. All three are on this sheet.
One bag, three completely different things
Hard Red Winter Wheat (Triticum aestivum) — whole, untreated, uncoated berries. It is the same grain that mills into bread flour, and it is the standard wheat for growing wheatgrass. Nothing about it is specialised for one use over another; the only difference between a tray of juice grass and a loaf of bread is what you decide to do on the day you open the bag.
Growing it for juice — six moves
Soak
Cover 2 cups of berries with plenty of cool water and leave them overnight. They swell to nearly double.
Pre-sprout
Drain well, then rinse and drain every 8–12 hours until you see tiny white root tips. Usually one or two rinses.
Sow
Spread over 1–2″ of damp soil in a 10×20 tray, in a dense single layer, berries touching. Do not bury them.
Cover
Cover with an inverted tray until the grass is 1–2″ tall and lifting the lid — usually 2 to 4 days. Mist if the surface dries.
Light
Uncover. Bright indirect light, and water from the bottom from here on. It greens up within a day.
Cut
Harvest at 6–8″, when a second blade appears alongside the first. Cut just above the soil.
What each day looks like
The signal to harvest is not height on its own — it is the moment a second blade appears alongside the first, which usually happens somewhere around 6 to 8 inches on day 8 to 10. Cut it there and the juice is at its sweetest. Left another few days the grass keeps growing but turns tough and stringy, and the juice gets noticeably harsher. Early is better than late.
Harvesting and the second cut
- Cut just above the soil with sharp scissors or a knife, a handful at a time. Do not pull — you will lift the whole mat.
- Cut dry. Skip the watering on harvest morning. Wet grass keeps badly.
- A second cut works. Keep watering the tray and it regrows, usually shorter and thinner over about a week.
- It will not taste the same. The second cut is less sweet and more fibrous, and a third is rarely worth the tray space.
- Then compost it — soil, root mat and all. It breaks down quickly.
- Store cut grass loosely bagged in the fridge, dry — it holds up to about two weeks at 38–40°F.
- Juice it fresh where you can. Fresh-cut grass juices more easily and tastes better than grass that has been sitting.
- Stagger your trays. Start one every three or four days and you have a continuous supply instead of ten days of feast and famine.
- Yield varies a lot with seed density, light and how hard your juicer works. Treat every figure here as typical, not promised.
Juicing it
| Juicer type | Works? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Manual wheatgrass juicer | Yes | A hand-crank auger that clamps to the counter. Cheap, no electricity, and made for exactly this. The usual starting point |
| Masticating / slow / auger | Yes | Single-auger cold-press models crush and squeeze rather than shred. The best yield and the easiest cleanup of the powered options |
| Twin-gear / triturating | Yes | The highest extraction of any type, and priced accordingly. Overkill unless you are juicing daily |
| Centrifugal juicer | No | Spins too fast to grip long fibrous blades — the grass wraps the basket and comes out almost dry. This is the single most common wasted purchase |
| Blender | Sort of | Blend with a little water and strain hard through a nut-milk bag or fine cloth. It works, it is messy, and the yield is poor. Fine for trying it before you buy a juicer |
A well-grown 10×20 tray gives roughly 10 ounces of juice the first few times you do it, and up to about 20 ounces once you have a good juicer and a feel for it. Most people drink 1 to 2 ounces at a time. Juice it fresh and drink it soon after — or freeze it in an ice-cube tray, which is how most regular growers handle a big tray.
Wheatgrass juice is strong, sweet and grassy, and it is not subtle. Most people start with an ounce and see how they get on with it before drinking more. If you have any health condition, are pregnant, or take medication, talk to your doctor before making it a habit — the same as you would with any new addition to your diet.
Growing it in a tray — the full method
- Soak 2 cups of berries 8–12 hours; drain.
- Rinse and drain every 8–12 hours until root tips just show — one or two cycles.
- Fill a 10×20 tray with 1–2″ of damp potting soil and level it flat.
- Spread the sprouted berries in a dense single layer. Press gently; do not cover with soil.
- Cover with an inverted tray for 2–4 days, until the grass is lifting it. Mist if it dries.
- Uncover at 1–2″, move to bright indirect light, bottom-water daily.
- Cut at 6–8″, day 8–10.
A flat, level soil bed is what gives an even tray. Low spots hold water and grow mold.
- Soak and pre-sprout exactly as above.
- Line a tray with a hydroponic grow mat, or several layers of paper towel.
- Spread the sprouted berries in one dense layer across the damp mat.
- Cover 2–4 days, keeping the mat damp but never flooded.
- Uncover, bright indirect light, and add water to the tray as the mat dries.
- Cut at 6–8″, usually a day or so behind the soil tray.
No soil to compost and no dirt in the kitchen, but the grass has nothing to feed on, so it runs shorter and the second cut is weak.
Keeping a supply going
- Stagger your sowings. Start a fresh tray every three or four days and you always have grass at cutting height rather than a glut followed by nothing.
- Two smaller trays beat one big one for the same reason — they finish at different times.
- Label the sow date. A strip of tape on the tray edge saves a lot of guessing about which one is ready.
- Room temperature and moving air is the whole environment. Warm and still is how trays go wrong.
- Reuse trays, not soil. Wash trays between crops; compost the spent root mat.
- Two cups of berries per tray means a one-pound bag runs roughly four or five trays.
Milling it into flour
Hard red winter wheat is bread wheat — the high-protein class millers use for yeasted loaves. Whole berries keep far longer than flour does, which is the whole point of milling as you bake: you store the grain, not the flour.
| Mill | Works? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Burr or stone grain mill | Best | Consistent, genuinely fine flour, and it handles volume. If you bake regularly this is the tool |
| Hand-crank grain mill | Yes | Slow, and real work. No electricity and nothing to break — the storage and off-grid choice |
| Stand-mixer grain attachment | Yes | Fine for a loaf or two at a time. Grind in small batches and let it rest between them |
| High-speed blender, dry container | Sort of | A dry-grains container in a powerful blender makes usable flour, coarser and warmer than a mill. Good enough to start with |
| Impact / micronizer mill | Yes | Fast, and the finest flour of any home mill. Loud, and it warms the flour more than a stone burr |
| Food processor | Not really | You get a gritty cracked-wheat meal, usable in pancakes or flatbread but never real flour |
Baking with flour you ground yourself
- Weight does not change: a pound of berries makes a pound of flour. By volume expect roughly 1½ to 2 cups of flour per cup of berries, depending how fine your mill leaves it — freshly milled flour is fluffier than store-bought, so weigh rather than scoop.
- It is 100% whole wheat unless you sift. The bran and germ are still in there, which is the flavour, and also the reason it behaves differently.
- Add more water — about 2 teaspoons per cup of whole wheat you swap in. Bran and germ drink more than white flour, and if the dough feels tight, it is.
- Let it rest. Twenty to thirty minutes after mixing lets the bran soften and hydrate, and the loaf comes out less dense.
- Start at 25–50%. Swap a quarter to half of the flour in a recipe you already know before going all in.
- Sift for a lighter crumb if you want something closer to bread flour — you are removing the coarse bran.
- Use it fresh. Flavour peaks in the first few days. It does not spoil then — figure a month or three at cool room temperature — but the germ oil oxidises steadily, which is exactly why commercial flour has the germ removed.
- Store leftovers cold. Fridge or freezer buys months. Whole berries keep far longer than flour — years, if they are sealed, cool and dry — so store the grain and grind what you need.
Sprout the berries as if you were pre-sprouting for a tray — soak 8–12 hours, then rinse and drain until the root tips just show. Stop while the tail is still shorter than the grain — longer than that and the flour turns gummy. Dry them completely at around 110–115°F, in a dehydrator or an oven on its lowest setting with the door cracked, until a berry snaps rather than bends. Then mill as usual. The flour is sweeter and slightly more delicate than unsprouted, and it behaves a little differently in a dough. Dry them properly. Milling anything still damp gums up a mill, and flour made from under-dried grain will not keep.
Cooking the berries whole
- Rinse, then simmer one part berries to three parts water, 50–60 minutes, until chewy not mushy.
- Soaking overnight first cuts that to about 35–45 minutes.
- A pressure cooker does it in about 20 minutes at high pressure, plus a natural release.
- Use them like farro or barley — grain bowls, hearty salads, soups, or with butter and salt as a side.
- They freeze well cooked, so make a big batch and portion it.
- Cooked berries keep 3–4 days refrigerated, per standard leftover guidance.
Milling — something went wrong
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Gritty flour, not fine | The mill is set too coarse, or the tool cannot get there — a food processor never does. | Tighten the mill and run the flour through a second time. Sift out the coarse bran and re-grind it if you want a finer result |
| Flour comes out warm | Friction, especially in a blender or an impact mill. Heat is what starts flour going stale. | Grind in short batches, let the machine rest, and spread the flour to cool before sealing it away |
| Bread is dense and heavy | Whole wheat flour is thirstier and the bran cuts gluten strands as the dough rises. | Add water, rest the dough 20–30 minutes before kneading, and swap only 25–50% of the flour until you know how it behaves |
| Flour smells sharp or bitter | The germ oil has oxidised. Whole flour does not keep like white flour does. | Grind smaller amounts more often. Refrigerate or freeze anything you are not using in a few days |
| The mill gums up | Damp grain. Usually sprouted berries that were not dried all the way through. | Dry sprouted grain until a berry snaps. If it bends, it is still wet. Never mill soaked or damp berries |
Growing and juicing — something went wrong
| What you see | Why it happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Mold in the tray | The number one wheatgrass problem. Seed sown too thickly, too much water, no air movement, or a soaked seed bed that never drains. Warm rooms make all of it worse. | Thin the sowing to a single layer, bottom-water only and less of it, and get air moving with a cracked window or a small fan. If it is grey-green, fuzzy and musty, compost the tray — do not juice around it |
| White fuzz at the roots | Usually root hairs, not mold. Bright white, fine, uniform, attached to the roots right under the seed, and no smell at all. | Nothing. It is a sign of a healthy root mat. Mold sits on top, spreads across the surface, is grey or blue-green, and smells musty — if you cannot tell, throw it out |
| Tall, pale, floppy grass | Left covered too long, or not enough light once uncovered. | Uncover as soon as it is 1–2″ and pushing the lid. Move it brighter, or add a cheap shop light 6–12″ overhead |
| Patchy, bald spots | Uneven sowing, an unlevel soil bed, or dry patches during germination. | Level the soil before sowing and mist thoroughly. Spread the berries in two passes at right angles for even coverage |
| Bitter, harsh juice | Cut too late. Once the second blade is well up, the grass turns fibrous and the flavour goes with it. | Harvest when the second blade appears, day 8–10, not by height alone. Cutting a day early is always better than a day late |
| Almost no juice | Nearly always a centrifugal juicer, which cannot grip long fibre. Sometimes grass that sat too long after cutting. | Use a manual wheatgrass juicer or a masticating model. Juice within a day of cutting. Run the pulp through a second time for a little more |
| Juicer keeps clogging | Feeding too much at once, or grass that is over-mature and stringy. | Feed small pinches slowly and steadily. Bunch the blades and go gently. Cutting at the right stage helps more than anything |
| Second cut is weak | Normal — the seed’s stored energy went into the first cut. | Expect a shorter, thinner, less sweet second cut, then start a fresh tray. Trays without soil especially may not give a usable second cut |
Sensible handling
- Clean hands, clean trays, clean juicer, clean mill. Wash between crops and between grinds.
- Use drinkable water for soaking, rinsing and watering.
- Grow at normal room temperature with air moving, out of direct sun. Warm and still is how a tray goes mouldy.
- Never juice grass from a tray with mold in it, and never mill grain that smells musty. Compost it instead.
- Juice fresh and drink it soon after. Cut grass keeps up to about two weeks refrigerated; juice is best fresh, though it freezes well in an ice-cube tray.
- Wheatgrass and wheat are the same plant. If you avoid wheat or gluten for any reason, treat this bag accordingly and ask your doctor about the juice.
- Rinse the cut grass before juicing. It is grown warm and damp for well over a week, which is a hospitable environment for more than just wheat.
- If you are pregnant, elderly, immunocompromised, taking medication, or managing any health condition, talk to your doctor before adding wheatgrass juice or any raw sprouted green to your routine.
Questions we get a lot
Reseal it and keep it cool, dark and dry — pantry is fine, freezer is better, and for long-term storage an airtight bucket or a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber. Never return damp or soaked berries to the bag.