Grow Your Own Bean Sprouts at Home

I still remember one of my early secondary school science lab projects where we were told to bring some mung beans in to school, place them in a beaker lined with a layer of cotton then filled it with water and left it covered for a few days. When we went back to check on them, they had all sprouted into bean sprouts that we usually find in all sorts of cooking, and the looks on our little faces!

Few decades later, while the whole world is in a lockdown situation due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the usually simple routine of grocery shopping became something not quite simple. Of course, thanks to the higher beings who invented the world wide web, we can now easily purchase our grocery needs online and get them delivered to our doorsteps. However, there are still things that we can't get easily, or they might be sold in large unit while we only need like a handful, such as bean sprouts.

Here's when my old school project comes in handy. I am pretty sure that most domestically well-versed people would have done this a thousand times, but I would still like to share my little alternative way - having had only access to limited equipment in the house.

Here are the 3 simple items I'm using: a glass bowl, base of a Vietnamese coffee filter, a piece of used wet wipe (obviously, it has been cleaned thoroughly and dried).

First, wrap the filter base with the used wet wipe.

Place the wrapped up filter base in the glass bowl.

Pour in the mung beans, level them as much as possible.

Add in clean filtered water just enough to cover the beans.

Once the above steps are done, I placed a piece of dark coloured cloth over the bowl, making sure that it shuts all lights out. Leave the bowl in an undisturbed corner, replacing the water about 3 to 4 times a day.

This is how they look on day 2 afternoon.

Day 3. 

And I believe that we will be able to have some home grown, fresh bean sprouts thrown in to some Asian style fried noodle or Char Kuey Teow tomorrow.

Once harvested, they can be kept for a few more days if not being used immediately. Just store them in the fridge, in a container fill with water.

To remove the husks, simply place the bean sprouts in a large bowl of clean water, and lightly rub any husks still stuck on the beans. The afloat husks can then be separated and removed easily.

I don't just throw away the husks either, they will go right into the compost bin.