For a long time now, our family has been considering and dreaming about buying it. After all, it’s a big investment and though we thought we’d have much use for it, it was well beyond our means. Then about six months ago, we decided to dare to do it. That’s when we bought it, the soya milk machine. We had to import it from the UK, because it wasn’t available here in Sweden.

When I began to punch in the order, I realized the first problem, you could only pick shipping witin the UK. I had to send an email to the company, which replied within a few days and were very helpful. They told me what to do and soon I could get on with placing my order. The next problem was that there were only two levels of shipping, and the higher one cost a considerable amount of money. I had to choose either to pay for many more kilos than I’d be able to use, or add soya beans and nigari so that I took advantage of the whole option.

In the end, I chose the second alternative. That would mean storing beans for a long time ahead, but at least it would be nice not to have to drag home beans and milk from the shop. After that, all I had to do was wait. The machine arrived even sooner than I had been hoping for. Clearly the UK has a great postal system, unlike our own that is more expensive and slower. Included in the package was a book of instructions, a tofu kit, extra beans and a few bags of coagulant. Time to get started.

After reding the booklet, I realized that what would be most tiresome, would be to wait for the beans to soak for eight to ten hours. Once that was done, the process would be simple and quick. I opened a package of beans and got started. The recipes mentioned several types of soya milk, thinner and creamier, and with different flavouring.

The first time, I made two creamy soya milk batches and a thinner one. One of the creamy ones ended up being an awesome soya latte, and the other I used to make tofu. The thinner one I used for baking and cooking. If you think this was a lot of hard work, I’ll tell you how I went about it.

Creamy soya milk: Soak two cups (cup was included in the package) of soya beans for eight to ten hours. Rinse the beans. Add water to the soya machine then add the beans (it’s very important to do it in that order). Put the lid on, attach the cable and press the button that says soy milk. The machine will beep and after that all you have to do is wait. Twenty minutes later it will start beeping again, until you detach the cable. Sift out the okara, but save it. The milk is done. If you’d like to make tofu out of it, see below.

Tofu: put the coagulant into the warm milk, stir and wait for twenty minutes. Sift out the whey (can be used for baking). Put the tofu mass into a cloth in the tofu kit. Put pressure on the lid to get as much of the whey out as possible. Remove the whey. Put something heavy on top of the lid and leave for a few hours. When it’s done, you’ll have a delicious (much tastier than the store bought type) tofu that can be used to make desserts or dinner, for instance scrambled tofu which is yummy.

Other types of milk I’ve made are oat milk (delicious – can be drunk as it is), rice milk (a little like jelly and has a funny texture, but it’s great for making rice pudding). Both types are great because you don’t need to soak first. It takes twenty minutes, not counting the preparations.

Mung beans are another type I’ve tried. It produces okara that is excellent for making burgers and milk, that you can make a delicious soup from, if you add coconut milk and stock. Other types of beans work too, but some of them don’t make a very pleasantly coloured milk.

The okara (the fibres that are left after you’ve made milk) can be used for baking (to replace fat, among other things), in burgers and in other types of recipes. Some types of milk produces a lot of okara and others practically none at all. The okara resulting from soya milk production has high grade protein, just like tofu, and is already cooked, so you won’t have to cook it again.

Hazel nut milk is dangerously delicious. I haven’t tried making almond milk yet. The trouble is you have to soak the almonds twice and rinse between soaks, so it takes from twelve to sixteen hours to make. I’ll try it later.

It’s very important to clean the machine carfully after use, so that the milk won’t burn. The cleaning kit included is great for that.

You might want to make sure you have oats (to dry the okara, when you make burgers), stock, tomato purée and brewer’s yeast.

If you can afford a soya milk machine, I can really recommend it. It’s fun, cheaper in the long run and gives you a more varied diet if you use it regularly. Our machine has already proved its worth.

The soya beans I bought from the UK are a little more yellow than the ones we get here, and the soya milk ended up being a little more yellow and creamy than when we used the beans we can get here. The company we bought them from guarantees that the beans are ecological and not genetically modified.

Tonight I’ve soaked two batches of soya beans and one of white beans. It will be the first time I try the white beans.