Homemade Almond Milk

How to Make your own Almond Milk

About a month ago, after learning about all the additives and preservatives in store bought brands of almond milk, I took the plunge into making it myself.  It really is not difficult to do, just a little time consuming, but I think I will get more efficient each time I make it.  I get about two gallons from 2lbs of raw almonds.  Plus, you get the added bonus of almond meal as a by-product for use in Paleo crackers, breads or pancakes!

Step 1:  Soak your almonds in water overnight.  After dinner is cleaned up, I pour two bags of raw almonds into a big bowl and cover with water.  Make sure there is a little room for expansion!  Depending on how much almond milk your family goes through, you can soak more or less almonds.

Step 2:  Drain and Rinse.  The next morning, when you are ready to make your milk, drain your almonds and rinse well with water.

Step 3:  Add new water and blend.  In your blender, add 1 cup of soaked almonds and 4 cups filtered water from your fridge or you could use bottled.  Blend until it looks white and your almonds are ground into small chunks.  I usually let it settle and run it again for a minute.

Step 4:  Strain into large bowl.  Using a sieve, resting on a small bowl, strain your almond milk.  I like to double up with cheese cloth to make sure I don't get any grit in the milk.  It's is super cheap and can be found in the kitchen section of most department stores.  You may have to press the last of it through, with the back of a spoon, to make sure you get every last ounce of the good stuff.

Step 5:  Add extracts.  This is the point that you would add pure vanilla extract, almond extract, or raw cacao powder (will need a little sweetener for this option).  You could also add fresh strawberry purée, but be sure to use within a day or two.  I add about 1 tsp vanilla extract to each batch and then pour into jars and refrigerate.  I stretch mine to about 10 days and its still delicious.

Step 6:  Bake your pulp.  Now with the leftover pulp in your sieve, dump it out on a cookie sheet, spread out, and bake at 300 degrees, until it dries out and starts to brown.  It takes maybe 90 minutes for each sheet and I get about four cookie sheets full.  I stagger them and try to remember which tray went in first, but it's pretty easy to tell which ones are done and which aren't.  Allow to cool on cookie sheets, then scrape off with spatula and spoon into food processor or magic bullet.  Pulse until nice and fine.  You may have to put through sieve again, but by this time you will have your almond milk mess cleaned up and can reuse your sieve.  Just make sure it's dry.

Step 7:  Repeat process.  Repeat the process for almond milk using the 1:4 ratio, until you are out of almonds.

Enjoy knowing you are cutting down on the chemicals and synthetic vitamins that you and your families are ingesting!  My goal was to cut back to 50% store bought and 50% homemade, but I haven't bought store bought since!  When we get low, I just soak more almonds and plan to spend the next morning making milk.  No more carrageenan!  That makes me one happy momma!