Making Soymilk

Here is the procedure I use for making soymilk. We used to have a SoyaJoy soymilk maker, but it died and I decided to start making soymilk by hand instead. It takes about the same amount of time, and it's just about as easy. The flavor is nothing like commercial soymilks. It's a little beanier, it's fresher, and it's not as thick. On the whole, I like it a lot better. It's good over cereal and in cooking, and our boys drink a lot of it. I do not guarantee that this is the best method, but I thought it might be worthwhile to somebody, so here it is. I use the following equipment:

• Mason jars
• Mesh lid for jars
• Blender
• 8 qt pot
• 4 1/2 qt pot
• 2 qt pitcher
• 1 qt measuring cup
• 1 cup measuring cup
• Steel mesh strainer
• Clean linen dish towel
• Potato masher
• Long-handled spoon
• Containers for milk

• 1 1/2 cups soybeans
• 6 quarts water
• 4-5 Tbsp brown sugar

		The first step is to soak the soybeans. I soak them in Mason jars, because they're a pretty nice size, and because you can buy mesh lids for them, which makes it very simple to strain the soaked beans. These lids are actually sold for sprouting beans, but they work great for this. I place 1/2 cup of dry beans in each of three jars and let them soak for around ten hours. Overnight is fine. I've used the quick soak method in a pinch, and the result is OK, but not great. It tends to separate out, and the taste is somewhat different--I think the milk is thinner, which would indicate a lower yield from the beans.
		Once the beans have soaked, you're ready to start. Add 4 quarts of water to the 8 qt pot and heat it to boiling. While that's heating up, you can get the beans ready. First, you need to drain them and rinse them a few times. The screen makes draining a snap, and you can just add rinse water through the screen.
		Now it's time to grind the beans up. Dump one of the drained jars of soybeans into the blender and add one cup of water. Blend until smooth. I've done all of them at once before, but my blender started smelling a little hot by the end, so now I just do them one at a time; your blender may be able to handle it, so you can try if you'd like.
		Pour the blended soybeans into the 4 1/2 qt pot. Repeat for the other two jars of beans. You should end up with a pretty thick pile of wet okara, which is the Japanese word for the soybean pulp. It's not actually okara yet, I think, until we press the milk out of it. Put another cup of water in the blender and blend, to get some more of the soybeans out. Add that to the pot as well.
		Sometime soon your water should start boiling. When this happens, carefully pour the blended soybeans into the boiling water, stirring to help prevent sticking. You'll want to stir frequently while this heats up to keep it from sticking to the bottom and burning; this can add a burnt flavor to the soymilk.
		While the soybean pulp mixture is coming to a boil, you need to rinse some of your equipment. But first, a few words about boilovers. Soymilk boils over very suddenly. Don't walk away for a minute or two, because it'll happen. And it's a real mess, typically accompanied by a lot of swearing and emotional self-abuse. You don't want that to happen, so keep a very close eye on the pot. I check on it every few seconds while I'm rinsing equipment; you may want to take it off the heat while you rinse so you can just watch it the first few times you make soymilk, until you're pretty comfortable with the procedure. Also, a bigger pot can give you some extra wiggle-room, if you have one. OK, back to rinsing. I guess you can think of this in terms of zones: there's the pulp (or okara) zone and the soymilk zone. You don't want okara in the soymilk zone, so we need to rinse anything that has okara on it that will later be used in the soymilk zone. Right now, that means the 4 1/2 quart pot. You'll also want to rinse the blender. We'll need another quart of water later, so what I like to do is get that quart and rinse the blender and 4 1/2 qt pot with it. This way, I'm not throwing away what's there. Keep that milky-looking rinse water for later.
		As soon as the soybean mixture starts to rise to the top of the pot, take the pot off the burner immediately. Set the steel mesh strainer in the 4 1/2 qt pot, then drape the linen dish towel over that. The dish towel is our barrier between the zones. (Yes, I feel like an idiot talking about "zones," but I'm committed now, so I'll keep it up.) With the 1 cup measuring cup, dip some of the soybean mixture out into the center of the towel. The sizes of my pots are such that I usually dip out a little over half of what's in the big pot.
		Now you need to squeeze out some of what's in the towel. Wrap up the pulp so it's in a ball and press it against the strainer with the potato masher. Don't worry about getting it all out at this stage, because you'll be adding more liquid to it in a minute. Now you've got some soymilk in the pot and some pulp in the towel (two zones, see?). There's still pulp in the big pot, so you need somewhere to pour the soymilk from the 4 1/2 qt pot so you can make room for the rest. I use a 2 qt pitcher for this purpose. Pouring is a little tricky. You have the strainer and the ball of pulp wound up in the towel to contend with. You can place these on a clean plate while you pour, or you can use my method: hold the wound up towel against one handle of the pot, and with the other hand hold the other handle and the potato masher against the towel of pulp. That should hold it out of the way. Dump this first portion of soymilk into the pitcher. Now, place the strainer and towel back into the 4 1/2 qt pot (if you took it out) and open the towel back up. Pour the remaining soybean mixture from the 8 qt pot into the towel. You now need to rinse the 8 qt pot--it's moving to the soymilk zone. Once again, I use the water I'm saving for later. Rinsing it probably won't get it completely clean, so once you've rinsed most of it away (keeping this ever-milkier water for later), you'll need to scrub the pot out. OK, now we're getting somewhere. Pour the pitcher of soymilk into the 8 qt pot and begin heating it to boiling (refer once again to the part above concerning boilovers and self-abuse--either wait to begin the boil until you've strained all the soymilk, or keep a very close eye on the big pot). Drain the soymilk that's now in the 4 1/2 qt pot into the 8 qt pot, and again press the soymilk out of the pulp in the towel. This time you should do a pretty thorough job. The okara doesn't need to be completely dry, but you want to get as much of that good stuff out as you reasonably can. Add that small amount of soymilk to the 8 qt pot, as well.
		Now you should have a good amount of soymilk in the big pot, and a towel full of okara in the small pot. Open the towel up and pour the rinse water into it. (See how milky the rinse water already looks?) Stir that up and wind the towel up so the pulp is once again a ball. Pour the milk into the big pot and press the okara again, adding whatever you get to the big pot. Now you're done with the okara. It can be used in recipes (there's some good protein left), but I have to admit, normally I just toss it. By this time, the soymilk normally isn't yet boiling, so I take the time to rinse everything up and get it out of the way.
		Once the soymilk starts to boil, you need to adjust the heat so that it doesn't boil over. We have an electric range, so I turn the heat down and then slide the pot partially off the burner to reduce the heat. As the burner temperature goes down, I slide the pot back onto the burner to keep a consistent boil. I guess this would be easier with a gas stove. When the soymilk boils, it makes foam. If the surface is completely covered with foam, the heat's too high and it's going to boil over. If you have a nice region that's bubbling but clear of foam, you've got a good boiling temperature that shouldn't boil over. I like the idea of using a lid, because that would allow me to use less heat, but it boils over so fast that I don't take the risk. Let the soymilk boil for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. This is supposed to break down some of the proteins so that they're more easily digested by humans. (This is the point at which you would branch off to making tofu, if that were your goal--I'll add a page on that sometime later.)
		After the milk has boiled for ten minutes, I place it in a sink of cold water to cool for twenty minutes. This keeps the soymilk from breaking our glass pitchers, and my friend Rob says you could run into problems with added sugar separating out if it's added when the soymilk is too hot.
		While the soymilk's cooling, get your containers ready. I add a scant tablespoon of brown sugar for each quart of soymilk. I think the soymilk tastes better without it, but I've been outvoted.
		After the soymilk has cooled, give it a quick stir. Next, I pour some of it into the 2 qt pitcher. Going from the pot to the 1 qt pitchers makes a mess. You could try a funnel, if you'd like. I usually set the 2 qt pitcher in the sink and fill it, transferring it from there to the 1 qt pitchers. It's just easier to control that way, and any mess from pouring out of the pot goes right into the sink.
		Pour the finished soymilk into the final containers, and stir them to mix the sugar in.
		You're done! Five quarts of homemade soymilk, ready to be devoured. I make a batch like this two to three times a week. I figured this out a long time ago to be less than 20 cents per quart, which is pretty good when compared with commercial brands. Furthermore, the amount of waste generated by drinking so many quarts of commercial soymilk each week is pretty high. Those containers add up. The process takes me about 45 minutes, which is not too bad a few times a week. We're pretty pleased with the product.