Plant based milks

[Yvonne Smith]

This thread is for any kind of plant based milk discussion, and for appliances that can make plant milks.
I have tried almond milk, coconut milk, oat milk, and soy milk (from a powder).
Now that I am doing the Whole Foods plant based way of eating, and feeling so much better, I have decided that I wanted to get one of the cheaper plant milk machines and start making more kinds of plant milks.
Especially I want to make soy milk, which has to be cooked before it can be used. The plant milk machines will make both hot milks, like the soy milk, and cool ones like almond milk , which just needs to be blended up .

I actually do not use much milk, and my biggest problem is having something to put in my morning coffee. I have tried making almond milk with just the blender and straining it, but I really don’t enjoy it in my coffee.
It is okay in cereal or oatmeal, but has to be used up in a day or so, or it goes bad in the refrigerator.
You can buy the plant milk coffee creamers, but they are expensive, and loaded with chemicals, preservatives, and sugar, and I want to avoid that, but still have something that goes well in my morning coffee.

Anyway, I ordered one of the plant milk machines, and it makes several kinds of plant milk, and will heat up to make soy milk. I found one that looked easy to use, and it was on sale for about half price, which is even better; so I ordered it , and some dry soybeans. They will be here by Monday, so the great soy milk experiment will start then !

 

[Marie Miller]

Will you please post about your process?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Will you please post about your process?

What I have been doing so far is using my blender, and mostly making almond milk. I soak a cup of almonds overnight, rinse and remove the skins .
They slide right off. You do not have to do this, but it is less bitter and the almond milk is whiter.
Then I add about 3 cups of water and blend really well.

If it is for cereal, this is all I do, since the residue is not a problem in a bowl of oatmeal or cereal. For drinking , it needs to be strained, especially if it is going to be in coffee.
This will only keep in the fridge for a day or so, and has a nice flavor. There is none of the added chemicals and stabilizers l;Ike you get in the commercial almond milk, and it has a lot more almonds per cup than store bought almond milk (which tastes like white water to me).

Making oat milk is about the same process, but I don’t like it in coffee either. The plant milk machine is designed for blending up plant milks, and runs a longer process. The time for soy milk is about a half hour , usually, because it has to blend and heat up to boiling and cook the soybeans before it can be used for drinking.
I will give a better report on this after i get the machine and try it out. There are a lot of really expensive plant milks machines , but i just wanted something cheap and does a basic job.

 

[Mary Robi]

I use Almond Breeze, not because I actually  like it but because I dislike it less than the others. It's OK....just OK on cereal. I can't stand to drink it. I've tried coconut and oat and soy stuff. Yuk.

Because I have developed a serious dairy intolerance in my old age, all dairy products are off the table. I ingest a little bit because, let's face it, you get dairy in a LOT of stuff.

I've tried Vegan cheese. No thanks.

I have a carton of plant-based yogurt in the fridge and, as long as I dump in enough fruit, it borders on tolerable. Barely.

I got some plant-based ice cream. It's cold and has some chocolate taste but it is not satisfying. No "creaminess" left in the mouth.

I hate the consistency of plant-based dairy, I guess. It is what it is. I refuse to refer to it as "milk". It isn't milk.

 

[Ken Anderson]

I’ve tried a few fake milks but didn’t like any of them; then, I don’t like real milk much either, except on cereal, and then, I use it sparingly.

 

[Tony Nathanson]

I like Almond Milk - the Unsweetened Vanilla. I use it in my homemade "cereal" which has diced apple & banana, blueberries, chia seeds & sliced raw almonds. Sometimes I get Soy Milk, but only the "Silk" brand; the others don't taste good to me. In coffee, I only use Coffee Mate

 

[Yvonne Smith]

The plant milk machine arrived yesterday, and I made some almond milk becasue I had some almonds soaked and ready. The information says it makes hot or cold plant milk, but when I set it for nut milk, it heated up and then made the almond milk. It did an excellent job of blending everything, but I needed more almonds than I used.
I think it is going to take me a while to get used to this. I love the taste of milk, and the different flavor in my coffee makes me question whether I still want to have coffee or not. I may not give that up, but I think I can use the plant milk for cereal, or other things that need some kind of milk.

As far as the machine, it is pretty simple to use, just choose the setting, add the water and nuts (or whatever), and turn it on. It heats and stirs for a while, then goes into blend and stop mode for about 15 minutes until it is done. The almond milk was nice and hot afterwards, and I was almost wishing that I had fresh coffee to try it in.
I used it this morning, but by then it had chilled overnight.

Oat milk needs to be made with ice cold water, so I have to look at it again and see which setting would work for that. Maybe the juice setting ? This is what the panel shows for options.

 

[Marie Miller]

About the only uses for milk I have is baking and Grasshoppers in summer. For that I keep some shelf stable quarts on hands. Plant based may work for some but it is too much prep and cleanup for my needs.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I am still working on this, and just not sure I am ready to give up on real milk yet. The almond milk is not the same in my morning coffee. I really like the taste of milk.
Since I only have one cup of coffee each day , I want it to taste good !

This morning I made my second quart of almond milk, and this time I think I used too many almonds, last time not quite enough. I ended up adding more water and a little bit of my whey milk, which helps give the almond milk more of a real milk flavor. This seems to be better now, so maybe I just need to work on learning better how to make it.

I am not sure that the almond milk from the machine is any better than when I just make it in the blender, because the machine heats the milk up for both soy milk and for almond milk.
Next time, I will soak some soy beans and try making soy milk.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I have been making the almond milk with the machine, and it is working pretty well, and I am getting used to having the almond milk in cereal now.
I still do not like it much in my morning coffee, but other than that, I am okay with it. I have not tried making soy milk yet, but I did order some soy milk powder from Amazon so I can blend that up and see what i think about how it tastes.
It is over $11 for a 14 oz package, which is a crazy price and I won’t be spending that kind of money after this one package. But once i have tried it, then I will have an idea what soy milk should taste like when I try making my own.

I have been watching videos about making plant milk, and there are just a variety of ways that people are preparing the soybeans before they make the milk.
Some say to soak overnight and others say to add them to hot water and boil for 5 minutes and then let the water cool down and soak overnight. The almond milk is much simpler, since I just soak the almonds overnight and squeeze the peels off and then put them in the nut milk machine and let it do all the work.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

My soy milk powder arrived yesterday, and I blended some to see what it tastes like. Not much flavor, but I added a scoop of vanilla protein powder and a little bit of regular A2 milk, and it works fine in my morning coffee now.
I also have been seeing that people are blending in cashews for added creaminess, and I ordered a package of bits and pieces of cashews from Amazon and they arrived today.
I put some in the blender with a little water and made cashew milk. It does taste pretty good, so I added part of it to my almond milk, and the rest to my soy milk mixture.
I am starting to get better with this plant milk thing, and getting use to the taste. I even used some of the almond milk making ice cream.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Today, I made my first batch of soy milk, and it turned out fine. It takes around a half hour because soy has to be thoroughly cooked before it can be eaten, so the process grinds and cooks the soy beans, and the milk came out really thick and very hot.
I used a half cup of soy beans, soaked overnight, which ended up being over a cup after they had soaked, and the milk came out thick because I just have a small milk machine, so it needs a lot less soybeans than I used.

I added some ice water and protein powder and blended it , and now I have almost 2 quarts of soy milk and it tases pretty good. Once you add the vanilla protein powder, there is not much difference in taste between the almond milk and the soy milk.
Next time, I will only soak 1/4 of a cup of soybeans, since they swell up so much.