How to Choose a Soybean Milk Maker

Choosing your first soybean milk maker can seem a bit overwhelming, but it's not. Here's a simple acronym to help you remember what to look out for: E.A.S.Y.

E. Easy to clean
A. Amount it makes meets your families needs
S. Soy milk and more
Y. Yummy tasting milk

Easy to clean. Cleaning a soybean milk maker is last on my list of exciting things to do. The soy paste gets trapped in the filter and if you don't clean it out immediately after the milk has finished, it dries and takes forever to get out. You get faster as you go on, but at first it's really time consuming. So, make sure you research and find out what others have said about cleaning whatever soybean milk maker you're looking at.

Amount. Some soybean milk makers make only about a quart, while others make close on a half gallon.

Soy milk and more. A soy milk maker should do more than just make soy milk. It should also be able to handle nuts, rice, wheatberries, etc. I've used mine for all kinds of things, from milling flax seed, making oat flour to chopping nuts for bread.

Yummy tasting milk. Taste is everything and not all soy milk makers produce the same flavour quality as others. Cheap/inexpensive soy milk makers will produce an inferior flavour compared to those that are more expensive. Keep an eye out on what others say about the milk quality, but also remember that what one person might thinks tastes awful, another person might like.

You can buy soy beans online or at your local bulk food or health food store. You can get up to 25 pounds for under $30. Twenty-five pounds might sound like a lot of beans, and it is, but if you go through a lot of milk, you'll be glad you bought a lot.

On the other hand! You might want to buy only 5 or 10 pounds to start, just in case you find you don't like making your own soy milk.

Click here to order now!

If you've never had freshly made soy milk, the flavour can be a bit of a put off because...well...it's bean water that looks like milk.

Personally, I like the flavour, but now and then I like to spruce it up a bit, so here's a few tips!

Sweeteners:

1. Real maple syrup.
2. Honey
3. Sugar in the raw
4. Rice syrup

Want your soy milk thicker like store bought? Add a teaspoon of lecithin granules!

How about a different flavour all together - Almond milk!

1. Soak a cuppa almonds for at least 10 hours in cold water. If you use chopped almonds, increase the amount to 1.25 cups and you don't have to soak them.

2. Make sure you drop your almonds in boiling water before processing. It removes the skins. It takes less than 20 seconds.

3. Put almonds in the mesh container and process!

You can also add vanilla to enhance the flavour!

So, there you have it! Give it a shot and have fun experimenting!

If you aren't a vegetarian, you probably haven't eaten tofu. In fact, the only time most people hear about tofu is in jokes aimed at vegetarians.

Tofu has various textures, consistencies, and flavors that simulate a range of meats--from turkey to hamburg, and can replace and far exceed the nutritional value of similar meat dishes.

Tofu, is a wise dietary choice. It's a low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-calorie food made out of steamed and compressed soy beans. Not only is it a great source of protein--but it is also heart-healthy and has been linked to a decreased risk in cancer.

In addition to being served as a meat alternative, tofu is also served in a number of spicy and ethnic dishes, which were never intended to contain meat. Many ethnic Indian dishes contain large amounts of tofu cooked and spiced in different ways.

So here is my biased suggestion to you: If you haven't tried tofu, give it a shot. It is both nutritional and versatile - and when it's prepared right - it doesn't taste as bad as you think.

I was looking for things to do with my soy beans other than make soy milk, tofu and the occasional toy for my cats to chase across the floor - totally by accident, by the way. So, I tried making soy flour.

The Soy Flour Adventure or How to Kill a Recipe

If you go to buy soy flour at your local health food store, you're going to pay an arm and a leg for it. Even if it's just a leg - that's still too much. So, since you've already got the beans all you have to do is drop some in the mill of your soy milk maker and mill your own. Simple and fast. Just make sure to follow the directions on your soy milk maker for how to mill beans.

Now for how to kill your recipe! If you want to give your recipe a good protein boost then add some of your homemade soy flour to it. BUT! And it's a big one! Only use a small amount, otherwise the strong taste of the soy bean overwhelms the recipe and you'll gag on the first bite. A small amount though will enhance the flavour of whatever you're baking.

Soy nuts!

This is my favourite thing to do with soy beans! I first discovered soy nuts in a health food store in Brooklyn. I fell in love with them. The only thing I didn't like, was they were a bit expensive. Maybe it's because it was Brooklyn, or just some health food stores price things over the top, but I decided to start making my own. It's really easy and really fast and you can make all kinds of flavours with them!

Here's a couple places that have good recipes and should get your creative genius working to come up with your own great flavours. Be sure you check the roasting times on each site. One has 350 degrees for 30 - 50 minutes and the other has 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Experiment and see which works best for you. By the way, you can also make soy nuts in the microwave!

1) What are soy nuts? This site includes a very useful nutritional chart for soy nuts and also includes instructions on how to use your microwave for roasting nuts.

2) 3 Healthy, Salty-Sweet Snack Solutions for Stress Eating This site has a delicious Latin-Asian Spicy Roasted Soy Nuts recipe.

If you know of any more good recipe sites, drop a note in the comments section with the links. Or! Leave a comment with your own recipes you've come up with!

Organic cows milk is expensive. In fact, at the time of this writing, March 4, 2011, both Stonyfield 2% and Horizon 2% cost $3.50/half-gallon at Walmart. That's $7.00 a gallon. Expensive!

Store bought soy milk costs almost as much as organic cows milk per half-gallon. It's also loaded with more sugar than you would put in your own homemade soy milk.

So, how much does a gallon of soymilk cost if you make it yourself? Between .25 -.30 cents/gallon. That's not a typo. It really does only cost pennies to make it. The best part is, over the past 4 years the price in soybeans has remained steady. That's pretty impressive in this economy.

So, if you're looking to cut back and save a lot of money, homemade soy milk is the way to go. You get a milk that's low in fat, high in protein and vitamins, and your wallet will love you.