How to Grow Red Clover Sprouts in Australia

Red clover (Trifolium pratense), a pea family legume (Fabaceae) sown in Australian pastures, sprouts in a jar into a crop usually eaten raw. The sprouts are crisp and mild with a faint nuttiness, and they are usually ready 4 to 6 days after the soak begins. They grow much like alfalfa sprouts, and the step most often done badly is draining.

Three mistakes that matter

1. Leaving the jar wet. Water pooled around the seed lets bacteria multiply and turns the jar sour. After every rinse, shake the jar until it stops dripping, then stand it mouth down at about 45 degrees in a bowl.
2. Crowding the jar. Sprouts swell to six to ten times the size of the seed, and a packed jar holds water where air cannot reach the middle. Keep to the amounts in What you need.
3. Sprouting paddock seed. Red clover sold for pasture is often lime pelleted and inoculated, and seed sold for sowing may carry fungicide or insecticide. Sprout only untreated seed sold for sprouting, as which seeds to sprout explains.

When to sprout

Red clover sprouts indoors in any month, and a room at 18 to 22°C suits it. Warmer rooms speed growth and cool ones slow it. Warm, damp air also suits bacteria, so heat calls for more rinsing, not less.

When a Townsville build-up or a Perth heatwave pushes the kitchen past 22°C, use the coolest room or pause until the weather eases.

Food safety

A jar kept warm and damp for days grows bacteria as readily as sprouts, and bacteria carried inside a contaminated seed cannot be rinsed out.

• Start with seed sold for sprouting, and wash your hands before you touch seed or sprouts.
• Wash the jar, lid and bowl in hot, soapy water and rinse them. Then sanitise them before the first batch and between batches. Use a dishwasher that can sanitise, usually on its longest, hottest setting. Otherwise, soak them in very hot water (77°C for 30 seconds). Or soak them for 30 seconds in plain unscented household bleach at 25 mL to 10 L of cold water. Make the bleach up fresh each day and use it as its label directs. Never mix it with vinegar. Let everything air-dry.
• Soak and rinse only with drinking-quality water, and sprout well away from raw meat, pets and the chopping board.
• Keep the fridge at 5°C or colder, and use raw sprouts within 4 to 6 days of harvest. Cooked sprouts for anyone at higher risk are served at once. Any left over are cooled, refrigerated, used within a day of cooking and reheated until steaming hot.
• Sprouts can carry harmful bacteria yet look, smell and taste normal, so none of those tells you they are safe.
• Bin any jar that smells sour or musty, turns slimy or darkens. Sprout problems and safety covers more warning signs.

What you need

A wide-mouth glass jar with a fine mesh sprouting lid does the job, or a square of muslin held on with a rubber band. A bowl or dish rack keeps the jar tilted mouth down. The store's red clover seed for sprouting is untreated, and a sprouting jar or a set of mesh lids for mason jars completes the kit.

The spoons are 20 mL Australian tablespoons. At that rate a 100 g packet sprouts about three 1 L jars.

For a tiered tray, soak the seed as below and scatter it thinly over each tier. Run it under the tap two to three times a day, and empty the drip tray daily.

Soaking and Rinsing

Begin the soak in the morning and drain it by evening.

1. Tip the measured seed into the jar and cover it with water. Skim off floating seed, loose hulls and debris, which research ties to most contamination, then pour the water away.
2. If you choose, soak the seed in undiluted supermarket vinegar for 15 minutes, then rinse it under the tap for 1 minute. This lowers the risk but does not remove it.
3. Cover the seed with two to three times its volume of cool drinking water, about 21 to 27°C. Soak it for 4 to 8 hours out of the sun, keeping to the short end in a warm kitchen.
4. Drain, rinse once more and drain thoroughly. Do not leave it soaking longer, since seed left in water can ferment and spoil.
5. Roll the seed around the glass to spread it, then prop the jar mouth down in the bowl.

After that, rinse with cool drinking water every 8 to 12 hours, two or three times a day, and never soak the seed again. Fill the jar through the mesh each time, swirl, and pour it all out. Tilting the jar lets the last water run out while air moves through the mesh.

Day by day

Airflow and drainage carry the jar from here, and light hardly matters until leaves form.

Keep the jar out of direct sun, which heats the glass fast and can cook the sprouts. A cold kitchen stretches every stage, so go by the signs in the last column rather than the day.

Harvesting and Storing

Red clover sprouts are ready when most leaves have opened and turned green. Their thin seed coats, called hulls, come away more readily than alfalfa's, and the sprouts keep better without them.

• Fill a large bowl with cool drinking water and drop the sprouts in.
• Swish and separate the tangle gently so the empty hulls float up.
• Scoop the hulls from the surface with a small sieve.
• Lift the sprouts out by the handful, leaving any sunken hulls behind.

Dry the surface before chilling, in a salad spinner or on clean kitchen paper, because surface water shortens fridge life. Pack them loosely into a clean, lidded container and refrigerate them at once. Clover sprouts are commonly eaten raw in sandwiches, wraps and salads, and they also go into soups and stir-fries. Rinse each serve under cool running water just before use. Rinsing does not remove bacteria inside the sprout, so anyone at higher risk still eats them cooked until steaming hot.

Common problems

Fuzz on the roots. Root hairs form an even white fuzz along each root, and they fall flat when you rinse. Mould can also be white, but it spreads in cobwebby patches over seeds and hulls, survives a rinse and smells musty. Throw out a mouldy jar.

Sour smell or slime. These are spoilage signs, and no rinse brings the jar back. Throw it out, sanitise the kit, and restart with better draining.

Seeds that stay hard. Red clover seed can include hard seed (seed whose coat keeps water out), so a few that never sprout are normal. Many at once point to old seed, overheating or irregular rinsing.

Tips

1. Start a small jar each time the last batch goes into the fridge, so fresh sprouts keep coming.
2. Swap to a coarse mesh lid for the final rinses, so loose hulls wash out through it.
3. Keep dry seed sealed in a cool, dark, dry cupboard, where it can stay viable for several years; the freezer stretches that further.