We are going to share with you some of the things that we’ve learnt making many kinds of vegetable drinks with our Vegan Milker. It’s a learning process which has had many contributions from people all around the world.

Water temperature:

Each type of food has different nutritional benefits, and so do the drinks that we make. For example, drinks made with nuts have more density than drinks made with cereals like rice or wheat based cereals. However, oat drinks, like flax and chia, usually become gelatinous. And we could be here for hours explaining the different characteristics.

We prefer to summarise the basic information on how to work with different seeds/cereals/nuts, etc. We use:

HOT WATER: Usually around 60ºC , and not more than 70ºC, for:

• Cereals (flakes or grains, be it rice, or oats or spelt…)
• Hard seeds: Hemp, sesame, quinoa

NORMAL WATER: Natural, room temperature water for:

• Nuts
• Herbal rhizome (tigernuts)
• Pre-cooked leguminous plants, like soya or peanut
• Seeds: Flax and Chia.

Raw material:

Rice plant and seeds

Here is a general outline on how to deal with every seed, cereal and nut.

• Use the raw, peeled product: Soft nuts such as cashews, walnuts, pistachios, and macadamias. Use cereals such as oats, rice, spelt, e.t.c. in flakes.

• Soya and whole cereals must be boiled between 10 and 30 minutes before using them to make a beverage. We boil them because in their raw state, they are either too toxic or too hard for our stomachs. Instead of boil them, you can soak them for at least 8 hours before using to make the milk. This process actives the seed and because of that, it will be more digestible.  After making the milk with the soaked seed, boil or not that milk, is up to you. We recommend you to boil the soya milk for 15 minutes.

• Hard nuts, like almonds and hazelnuts, tigernuts-, grains of whole raw cereal and hard seeds, like sesame, quinoa or chia, must be soaked for between 2 and 12 hours before making the milk. All of these nuts and seeds must be soaked, because they are too hard to be ground in their natural state.

The mixer:

When using the mixer, we use the lowest setting, we don’t need to use a lot of power. Mixing takes between 1 and 2 minutes, depending on the hardness and size of the foods.

With small seeds, we recommend using the highest setting, because the smaller seeds are difficult to squeeze and they pass through the blades. We also recommend using just half a litre of water with little seeds to reduce the liquid to seed balance, thus helping the process. There may be a suction effect, but there is no danger.

In another chapter we will give advice on conserving the drinks, using sweeteners and sedimentation of the drinks.

If you want to start with some recipes, take a look at the VEGAN MILKS section of this blog.