Total time – 15 minutes
I finally figured it out and my good friend @foleypod suggested I write this and share it.
If you have never made nut milk, well, you should, because it is delicious, easy to make and really good for you as well.
If you have made nut milk you know that it is a pain to deal with the nut milk bag. I have been struggling with these bags for 3 years now and NO MORE. Pouring a slurry of ground nuts and water into a bag then squeezing it for 20 minutes and making a huge mess is a thing of the past.
Here’s the trick.
In the bottom photo you see that I have three bowls, two with strainers and one with a nut milk bag, all ready to go. By pouring the blended nut mixture into the first strainer, on the left, a regular strainer, you see how much pulp is captured – not a lot (bottom right picture). This is because the VitaMix really does a fantastic job of pulverizing the nuts. However, there’s still a lot of pulp left in the liquid.
So, I then use a micro-strainer (easily found at kitchen supply store. Notice that this filtered out 2x as much pulp (strainer on the right). My technique is to pour the liquid through the strainer, then swirl it around and around until it is drained. I used to use a whisk, but that ended up forcing pulp through the mesh – which was counter-productive.
Finally, I pour the mixture after two strainings into the nut milk bag. Now, the bag can easily filter out the finest sediment and it takes 30 seconds at max and you don’t have to twist, turn, force or put so much pressure on the bag that you end up bursting it (ah, yes, the ugly secret about nut milking is the bursting of the bags…. but no more!)
The resulting milk is very smooth and free of particulates, just bottle it, chill and serve.
So, what’s the recipe?
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw almonds, soaked at least 4 hours in filtered water, drained and rinsed
- 4 cups filtered water
- 3 tablespoons raw honey (adjust to suit your taste, or omit)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
- 2 tablespoons Nutiva Coconut Oil (optional)
