BakeandCut

Home made Soy milk

 

Soy milk, say those two words and you can see the colour draining out of some people’s faces. And I used to be one of those people once, but not any more. It’s like this scary monster from the dark forest paying them a visit.

So why do people react like this? It is a matter of taste, and the brand of soy milk 15/20 years ago, was not nice. The 1 ^first major brand/name in this country tasted nothing like soya beans. And to my taste it still has not improved. After drinking home-made milk with just beans and nothing else, you know what soy milk should taste like. Now there are so many brands around, and the flavour varies so much, it’s really hard to think of them as a similar product.

Soy milk was also quite costly the last time I bought some. Prices were somewhere between $2.60 – $3.00 a litre. That is a lot if you go through 1-2 litres a day.

WOW!- That means if you went through 2 litres a day @ approximately $2.00 a litre, that would be over $2,000.00 (thousand) for the year;- Enough to buy the machine and beans, from milk alone.

I never could find one that tasted any good, and they were full of oils and sugars and numbers.

Reading this label of a very popular brand of soy milk, it is not  hard to see the reasons for making the stuff, taste, cost, convenience, to strange additives, all good reasons.
I feel cheated when I read labels like this, it is also exhausting and decoding every label every time you shop.

Where are the soy beans?

What made me give up cows milk?- 3 reasons, One: we wanted to shift away from dairy, Two: it did not keep well when on a building site and when away from home in a cooler.

And number Three: was the ‘king hit’ for me to stop drinking cows milk;- I was at a family members place, we had a cup of tea, took the first mouthful and started to gag. The milk in it tasted like something had died. I asked if it was fresh;- and the answer was yes,- they bought it the day before. So I had a look at the bottle, and on the front it said ‘omega enriched’, well alarms bells went off in my head.

By this time my stomach was still churning and I felt like vomiting. I didn’t though, which was a good thing. Any way back to the bottle;- I read the label and it had fish oil on the label!

The 1^st ingredient was milk, then fish oil, then sugar and then numbers. Helloooo, I wonder why it tasted yucky, and that was it.
I really had to find something else.

So thanks to the dawning of the internet age, I could look for appliances online to make soy milk. I did a lot of reading. I found a soy milk maker which I used every day, it was good, but only lasted about 2 years, and was cumbersome to use.

When that machine died I had to find an alternative. So I then got a Thermomix, that machine is still going, and that worked well. Then I got my big 8 litre pressure pot. Now this is where life got interesting. So I thought beauty, make all my milk for the next 4 days in the pressure pot. Well it is the only time in 12/13 years of using pressure pots that I have ever had them vent from too much pressure. And I did this twice. And if you have ever had a gushing geyser of hot food like substance on your stove top, the words that spring to the mouth are less than lady-like. And the horror of what just happened and the mess, oh the mess, it goes everywhere!

I never tried to make soy milk in a pressure pot after that. So then I ditched the lid and just used the pot and it worked. But you have to watch it like a hawk. It boils over so quickly, and it smells so bad when burnt to a stove top, and then the clean it up is not much fun either.

When using a pot you have to bring it up to the boil then back it right off to a simmer without boiling it over. And do not take your eyes off it. This was a bit painful for me, because I would take my eyes off it.

Now I have upgraded from my Thermomix to a Mycook Premium from Ozcook. And it was a good decision, and now it is my soy milk maker and I am loving it and I don’t think I will need to buy another machine ever. As you have read, I have tried many ways of making soy milk, and the Mycook Premium is the clear winner.

When I make my milk I strain it through cloth, or you could buy yourself a nut milk bag. I always sterilise my bottles and jugs, just because the milk keeps better.
When the milk is hot you can add a Coagulant or Nigari and make tofu. I will do that at a later post. http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/products/Nigari-Powder-50g.html

Now most of my visitors know that we have soy milk and they adjust according to their tastes, some have no problem with it, others bring their own milk when they come and others just go black, and that is because their colour drained when we tell them it is soy they are having, just kidding.

I use it in all my recipes, just as you would cows milk. I can not ever imagine a life with out my soy milk.

So if you have allergies or want to save, this is the best way. You can sweeten it if you wish, some people add oil to make it creamier. I do not see the point. It is perfect, just as if you had just milked the soya bean tree.

 

Click on the photos for full screen viewing and feel free to ask any questions

Happy milking!
~Rachel

See full recipe (and save and print it ) here