03 February 2012

Canned Almond Milk

Canned.  Almond milk.  You heard it here first.
 How do I know?  Because I've been scouring the internet for instructions on canning almond milk.  It just isn't done.  You can can milk, and you can can dry almonds, but canning almond milk is, thus far, a thing of legend.

Disclaimer:  don't actually try this.  This recipe is not FDA-approved and to be frank, I haven't even tested the canned stuff yet.  Stay tuned for details on whether or not I've contracted botulism from my own foolishness.  Just saying.
[Disclaimer edit]  I'm emphasizing the above.  DON'T TRY THIS.  It was a miserable failure and I dumped everything out.  Maybe I didn't process it long enough - everything came unsealed.  [/Disclaimer edit]

Number one on the list:  how do you milk an almond?  It's easy.  First, you soak a cup of almonds in water overnight.  This plumps them up.
Then rinse your almonds and put them in the blender with four cups of water.  So our ratio here is 1 c. almonds : 4 c. water, making almond milk at least 80% water.
I recommend a bigger blender than this, if you can find one.
Next, strain the almond pulp out of the milk.  You can see in the photo above that it has already started separating.  Ideally I would have used something like the pillowcase in making grape juice, but instead I went with some cheese cloth over a strainer.
I quadrupled the recipe so that I ended up with 8 pints (16 cups) of almond milk.  This results in a big pile of almond meal, which should NOT be thrown away!
Even just sitting in the pot, the almond milk separated a little bit.  This is a little foretelling of the canning process.  Right here is where you should add 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 tbs of sugar (or honey or maple syrup) per cup of almonds.

This is where we deviate from the normal path.  Right now your almond milk is perfectly good.  You can drink it, put it on your cereal, make smoothies, or use it to trick your friends.  What I do next might ruin it.
I based my processing time on this.  I frequently use pickyourown.org and I have a good deal of faith in it.  So water bath canning for 30 minutes.
And the result?  Well, the almond separated from the water.  It doesn't take much movement of the jar to stir it up again, and giving it a good shake makes it look almost as good as new.
Honestly, I'm not worried about trying this.  I think it turned out just fine.  It will be great for smoothies and other things that almond milk is typically used for.  Maybe even drinking straight.  Why did I do this?  Well, I don't think that regular milk is nutritious.  After reading about what the cows go through, and how disease-infested the environment is, I'm turned off milk completely.  Even organic milk is something I would reserve for special baking occasions like blueberry coffee cake, but not for drinking.

So stay tuned to see what I do with the almond meal, and if not that, then at least stay tuned to see if this canning adventure puts me in the hospital.  If it doesn't, I'm sure this isn't the last you'll see of home-canned almond milk.

[Edit]  This canning adventure was a horrible disaster.  An utter failure in terms of almond milk and a huge waste of time.  Everything came unsealed and smelled awful.  Almond milk is very tasty raw and perhaps that's just the way it's meant to be.  Maybe someday I'll attempt this adventure again and see if I can find a way to make it work, but thus far, this qualifies as Biggest Kitchen Disaster EVER. [/Edit]

10 comments:

  1. I'm searching for info on canning almond milk and your post came up. Waterbath canning is only for high acid foods (jams, fruits, pickles, and tomatoes or salsa with added lemon juice or vinegar)I'm pretty sure almond milk would be low acid and thus need to be pressure canned.

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    1. That's a really good point - I was hoping that because almonds could be canned in a water bath, almond milk would do okay too. Oh well.

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  2. uhh... water bath would be a no go here... your ph isn't acidic enough. Pressurized canning might work... regular milk is at about 10 lbs for I think 20-30 minutes... can't remember.

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  3. I've been searching like mad trying to find a way to do this and so far I've only been able to find this post. Surely there must be a way to can almond milk since you can buy shelf stable stuff at the grocery store. I've never made it before but from what I've read is seems like it doesn't last very long. I was thinking I could make a huge batch on the weekend and can it so I wouldn't have to spent any time during the week to make it. I would really like to get away from buying the stuff in the stores.

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    1. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I have a pressure canner now, but I haven't yet tried to pressure can almond milk. I'll probably try it again this winter, and if it works I'll make sure to update this post.

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  4. I was curious if you tried this in a pressure canner yet?

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    1. I have not. I'd hate to see another canner load of almond milk go to waste so I'm a little hesitant.

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  5. I tried your recipe today and I pressure canned... my jars look just like yours... I will let this cool and shake and see what happens... if it doesn't separate.. I would have to say...almonds don't like this type of treatment!

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  6. Yesterday, I pressure canned the Vanilla Maple Almond milk recipe at 10pounds of pressure for 20 minutes. It separated just like your batch!
    After 24 hours of sitting... I just couldn't help myself... I had to shake the jars

    Day 1 - I opened a jar and did the sniff test, it smelled very strongly of Almonds - maybe they burnt during processing. The chunks were soft, I imagined the chucks being harder because when I shook the jar it sounded like a rock hitting the lid! I tasted it.. it tasted a bit off... not sour just it tasted like it smelled...almondy! So I added a bit more of vanilla and maple syrup...it still had the strong almondy taste.. so... I made a smoothie, first I added ice and spinach and mango... blended.. still had the strong almond taste.. so I added half of a frozen banana... and it taste pretty yummy! I will tell you I am not a picky person by nature...so I would eat this smoothie... I will post an update in a few weeks.. I put most of the sealed jars into the fridge and two in the pantry.. I will open one in a month and then another in a few months. I will let you know how the experiment goes!!!

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    1. Excellent! Thanks so much for posting your results here - I look forward to your updates. I hope everything turns out okay!

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