How long can grains soak?

[dalia]

Accidentally soaked some brown rice for about 32 hours. Is it still okay to cook and eat?

[iowaorganic]

not sure to tell you the truth but my theory  a la sally fallon is if it smells awful don't eat it.  So if I could stand to put it in my mouth I would.

[dalia]

LOL I like the way you think. It didn't cook right so I fed it to my chickens. :-)

[dovey]

Your post reminded me of something I read in the last issue of Cook's Magazine.  Apparently, soaking rice can cause a toxin to develop which causes mild digestive upset - unless you soak it in the refrigerator.  It didn't give any information about soaking times, or whether the toxin develops with other grains too, questions that I would like to find out the answers to.   

[heatherdeg]

This is actually a really interesting question since there's a soaking method that involves "fermenting" where you add some of the old soak water (kept in the fridge if you don't need it right away) to the next batch of soak water.

FWIW, I have managed to soak mine until it stinks.  Someone told me "Oh!  Don't worry!  It'll just sprout!  Just change the water and you'll be fine!" but I really never saw it sprout (literally five days in or more) and it stunk even with the water change (the first time was an accident, but after that commentary I tried it on purpose).  Now I need to find the fermenting gurus and really ask about this.

I think the stink test is a good one, though.  I mean, we're pretty well biologically wired to keep ourselves out of trouble with a sniff test.