Recipe Notes

• It's best to use a 32 oz. wide mouth mason jar because the lentils need room to expand after soaking and room to breath as they sprout so they don't become too moist. This recipe calls for 1/2 cup of lentils and they will expand to almost fill up the whole jar once they are sprouted. If you want to double the recipe, use 2 jars so the lentils have enough room to expand. 
• You'll need a lid that allows the lentils to get air in the jar while they are sprouting. You can either use a sprouting lid or cheesecloth. You can get sprouting lids online, at health food stores and sometimes even hardware or gardening stores. Cheesecloth is available online or at target, walmart or kitchen supply stores like sur la table.
• You can use any kinds of lentils including red lentils, green, brown or french lentils. The process for sprouting them will be the same for any kind of lentil. The only thing that may vary is the time it takes for sprouts to form.
• This recipe uses 1/2 cup of dry lentils and will result in about 3-4 cups of sprouted lentils.

Troubleshooting tips if your lentils aren't sprouting:

• Occasionally some companies irradiate their lentils in order to keep pathogens from growing and this may keep your lentils from sprouting. If this happens to you, try a different brand or order lentil seeds that are made for sprouting. Personally, store-bought lentils usually work fine for me, but it is possible that irradiation may be a reason some are not sprouting.
• It's possible that your house is too cold and not providing a warm humid environment for the lentil sprouts to grow. If it's winter time or if your lentils are sitting in a cold are of the home, try moving it to a warmer spot near the heater or near the oven. 
• Your lentils are too old. Sometimes if you've had a bag of lentils sitting in your pantry for a number of years and you've just decided to try to sprout them, they may have simply gone bad and don't have it in them to sprout! The same can go for some lentils bought from a bulk bin at a store...if they're not very fresh, this can hinder them from sprouting. 
• You soaked them for too long or not long enough. Generally you want to soak the lentils for about 8 hours, give or take a couple hours. However, sometimes people leave them overnight and forget about them and they soak too long and won't sprout. ON the other hand if you put too little water in the jar or only soaked them a few hours short of 8 hours, they may have not had enough time to soak. 
• You didn't rinse them enough during the germination period. Sometimes this can contribute to moldy sprouts or lentil sprouts that have gone bad as well. Rinsing them at least twice a day helps keep them fresh.