Canning soy milk
chris
04/16/07 		Hi,

Has anyone ever tried to can homemade soy milk? I'm assuming you'd have to use the pressure canning method, as the acidity of soy milk wouldn't be sufficient for the boiling water bath method. I'm curious if anyone has heard of pros/cons of canned soymilk or suggested times and pressures. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Chris

chris
04/17/07 		I was looking through the USDA canning guidlines last night and got to wondering if the recommended times for soup would be the most appropriate method. Soymilk is sort of like a thin bland soybean soup. 75 minuts at 11lbs for 0 - 2000ft. Oh, and I'm guessing it'd be best to can the soymilk unflavored so you wouldn't carmelize any sweetners during the processing. Still hoping to hear from anyone who's tried this before I attempt it though.
ellen
04/17/07 		Chris, why can it? The beans are easy to store, a soymilk maker is inexpensive and effective, and no safety issues. Canning green beans and stews is pretty difficult, safety wise.
chris
04/17/07 		I'll have to read up a bit more on canning grean beans and stews to see what the potential pitfalls are. Thanks!

As for why...essentially convenience. We go through a small quantity of soymilk, about 1 quart a week. We make our soymilk a bit rustic with a large kettle, as we don't have a proper soymilk maker. It's about as easy to make a gallon or two as it is a quart with that method. A two gallon batch would have me making soymilk once every 8 weeks rather than once a week. It'd be a nice time saver if it we're possible to do safely. A soymilk maker would be a nice convenience, but the frugal side of me always wants to see if i can figure out a way to do things with the tools at hand, rather than make a special purchase.

Also I like the idea of being able to have some soymilk stored without refrigeration in case of extended power outages and the like. I keep some commercial soymilk in the pantry for that reason. But in all honestly, that's a far second reason to the time saver route!

ellen
04/17/07 		OK, I can see your reasoning. Still your time is precious, too, and the machine makes a quart and a half or 2 in just about no time and with just a tiny effort- I use more soy milk since it is so easy and cheap to make- maybe you could borrow one and try it? In the meantime, have you tried freezing it?