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Mar. 9th, 2019 08:28 amAs part of finding safe alternatives for my sister's kids I attempted making flax milk last night. I had flax meal on hand for addition to my oatmeal- I used to buy whole flax seeds but having to grind them was a pain in the ass- so I figured I'd use that with a standard flax milk recipe.
When they say 'flax has a gelling effect' they are NOT KIDDING. Even just out of the cheesecloth this stuff is freakishly cohesive. Like, mucilage plus. After a night in the fridge it's even more so. I appreciate it not separating the way the oat milk did but pouring it into my morning room-temperature cold brew coffee (the only reason I am awake at 8:30 on a Saturday is because I am doing remote IT maintenance) resulted in a very visible and distinct glob at the top of the glass. This is after shaking the heck out of the storage jar. And, on the second pass, after stirring the contents of the storage jar.
I may get different results with hot coffee but I will worry about that when I actually have hot coffee. I can report that the taste is not bad; however, due to not quite having my cheesecloth arranged properly, there are still visible flecks of flax in this batch of the milk, and they are palpable to the teeth. It is slightly disconcerting. Not as disconcerting as the blob monster in the top of the coffee column prior to stirring, mind you. I may be looking at a situation where more water would have been helpful- I reduced a recipe by a significant amount, because none of the flax milk recipes I found were for less than 4 cups of water, all of them said 'lasts 3 days in the fridge', and none of them sounded like something I was likely to consume completely in three days' time. I scaled down both the water and the amount of flax I used, but if flax meal produces a stronger gelling effect than whole flax seeds when both are put in a blender, that may explain the blob monster.
I did follow the recipes' exhortations not to put the flax remainder down the drain. This house was built in like 1910 and while the plumbing has been updated along the way it's still got oldish pipes. Not gonna challenge them with that kind of glue. OTOH I did not save the stuff to dry and use as extra fiber in recipes, either. I already use whole wheat flour and just add flax out of the bag if I need it. If I do this again- and the blob monster effect makes that a fairly big if- I will consider the possibility for use in, say, a chick pea peanut butter protein bar as a substitute for/supplement to the oats that are usually part of the recipe.
As it stands I cannot recommend the stuff, but an experiment is not really valid if you don't get the same results more than once. I am going to see about getting a proper squeezy bag (I refuse to use the word 'mylk') to try these things a few more times and will see how they turn out.
When they say 'flax has a gelling effect' they are NOT KIDDING. Even just out of the cheesecloth this stuff is freakishly cohesive. Like, mucilage plus. After a night in the fridge it's even more so. I appreciate it not separating the way the oat milk did but pouring it into my morning room-temperature cold brew coffee (the only reason I am awake at 8:30 on a Saturday is because I am doing remote IT maintenance) resulted in a very visible and distinct glob at the top of the glass. This is after shaking the heck out of the storage jar. And, on the second pass, after stirring the contents of the storage jar.
I may get different results with hot coffee but I will worry about that when I actually have hot coffee. I can report that the taste is not bad; however, due to not quite having my cheesecloth arranged properly, there are still visible flecks of flax in this batch of the milk, and they are palpable to the teeth. It is slightly disconcerting. Not as disconcerting as the blob monster in the top of the coffee column prior to stirring, mind you. I may be looking at a situation where more water would have been helpful- I reduced a recipe by a significant amount, because none of the flax milk recipes I found were for less than 4 cups of water, all of them said 'lasts 3 days in the fridge', and none of them sounded like something I was likely to consume completely in three days' time. I scaled down both the water and the amount of flax I used, but if flax meal produces a stronger gelling effect than whole flax seeds when both are put in a blender, that may explain the blob monster.
I did follow the recipes' exhortations not to put the flax remainder down the drain. This house was built in like 1910 and while the plumbing has been updated along the way it's still got oldish pipes. Not gonna challenge them with that kind of glue. OTOH I did not save the stuff to dry and use as extra fiber in recipes, either. I already use whole wheat flour and just add flax out of the bag if I need it. If I do this again- and the blob monster effect makes that a fairly big if- I will consider the possibility for use in, say, a chick pea peanut butter protein bar as a substitute for/supplement to the oats that are usually part of the recipe.
As it stands I cannot recommend the stuff, but an experiment is not really valid if you don't get the same results more than once. I am going to see about getting a proper squeezy bag (I refuse to use the word 'mylk') to try these things a few more times and will see how they turn out.
