Greenkama

Oat milk: self-experimentation with sad findings!

A few days ago I made the so-called “oat milk” myself for the first time. Although this was surprisingly simple at first, it did lead to a few questions.

Author: Andre Wolf

It's no secret: the consumption of “milk” as a product has been steadily declining in Germany for years . In contrast, the consumption of milk alternatives, such as the alternative product commonly referred to as oat milk, is increasing. , sales of plant-based milk in German food retailers doubled in 2020 compared to 2018 However, these industrial products are expensive and the taste sometimes takes some getting used to. But there is a (very) cheap option: produce milk alternatives yourself! I did that and got an amazing result. The following will therefore specifically focus on the well-known so-called oat milk.

First of all: oat milk is of course not milk. The term “milk” is reserved for animal milk from cows, sheep, goats or even horses. In this respect, we are talking about a term that is commonly used in this way. Officially, oat milk is therefore offered as an oat drink, for example, and the companies producing it are encouraged to avoid the term “milk”. Personally, I am always careful with names such as oat drink, oat drink or similar, as they are often not transparent in marketing language. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the term oat milk in this article because it is widely understood.

Oat milk itself is a fairly simple product that mainly consists of ground oats and water. Actually just water, usually 90%. Based on this realization, last weekend I decided to produce my own oat milk using a simple recipe. I don't want to withhold this recipe from anyone:

  • 1 liter cold water
  • 100 g oat flakes
  • 1 pinch of salt

That's it, that's all. I put all three ingredients in a blender and mixed them for about two to three minutes. As an additional tip, I can give you that it makes sense to add one or two ice cubes. This ensures that the mixture does not stick together due to the heating that occurs during mixing. After mixing, I ran the whole thing through a sieve and it was done. The oat residue remained in the sieve, which I used as a normal oat breakfast for the next breakfast. I collected the liquid and produced my first liter of oat milk.

But now the question always arises as to what I want to achieve with my replacement product and why I produce it at all. When it comes to oat milk, it is important to know that it is of course quite high in calories and is generally not a drink that you can use to “quench your thirst”. The point is to use this product where classic milk was originally used and I would like to replace it (for whatever reason). And when producing it myself, it is also important that I can determine and control the ingredients myself and keep the price very low.

Homemade oat milk: The costs!

And now it starts. Let's take a look at the costs incurred. I bought 500g of crushed oats at retail. These 500g cost me 55 cents. I used 100g for the oat milk, which basically cost me 11 cents. Now comes a “but”, because I reused the leftovers from the sieve for the next breakfast. In this respect, the question arises as to how high the costs of the raw material used really were.

However, because not everyone uses this sticky mass at their next breakfast, I'll simply state the cost at this point as 11 cents for the oats. Then there is the water. A liter of water, especially in Vienna, costs next to nothing. On average we can estimate the cost of a liter of water as 0.2 cents. There are various sources that show slightly more or less ¹ ² ³ . The pinch of salt is also basically hard to calculate, so I don't exceed 12 cents per liter.

Admittedly, my product has become extremely purist. It is also not versatile, which we will look at in more detail in a moment. Nevertheless, I produced a liter of oat milk, the waste product of which I can still use. Of course, in the end I also have to factor in the costs for electricity (well) and mixer (purchase), but the mixer in particular is difficult to calculate because it is used in the household for all sorts of things.

Nevertheless, at this point I have a product for just under 12 cents. How much does a liter of industrially produced oat milk cost the other person? We only have to go to a supermarket and see prices between €1.80 and €3. The editorial team of brand eins magazine has published a very interesting article on the subject of oat milk, in which you can also read the composition of a product from the company Havelmi:

Havelmi states these costs per liter:
Recommended retail price (gross) 2.99 euros [100%]
— VAT (19%) 0.48 euros [16%]
→ Recommended retail price (net) 2.51 euros
— Trade margin and logistics 1 .00 euros [33.4%]
→ sales price ex works 1.51 euros
— raw materials 0.31 euros [10.4%]
— disposable packaging (lid, label) 0.07 euros [2.3%]
— reusable packaging (bottle, box) 0.20 euros [6.7%]
— production costs (gas, water, electricity) 0.10 euros [3.3%]
— personnel expenses 0.37 euros [12.4%]
— administrative expenses 0, 41 euros [13.7%]
— margin 0.05 euros [1.7%]

Source: brand eins

From the overview we see that various factors are of course responsible for the high price. Nevertheless, we have a striking difference between my not quite 12 cents and the €2.99 from the industrial product. However, we have to be fair about this price difference. Because that's where we come to the big problems with my home-made oat milk: the taste, the possible uses, the shelf life.

Purism has its price!

In terms of taste, my puristic product lags behind industrial oat milk. On the one hand, this is intentional because I haven't added any sugar or other ingredients, but on the other hand, it means my product hardly tastes good. It is certainly an advantage that I can choose the ingredients of my product myself. This means I have full control over my oat milk and don't consume any hidden sugar or unwanted ingredients.

In order to compensate for this missing taste experience, I have a large amount of ingredients available that I can mix. And in the end that's up to us all. Whether I mix dates (very popular), add honey, sugar or spices is entirely up to me and my taste. I have many options. However, this also changes the price and nutritional value.

My puristic oat milk quickly showed the limits of its usability. I naively added them to my coffee as a milk substitute, for example. Logically, this doesn't work at all because my oat milk doesn't form a homogeneous mass with the coffee. My much heavier oat milk settles at the bottom of the coffee. In order to optimize my oat product for coffee, I would have to produce a “barista oat milk” from the outset, which in turn is a little more complex to produce. A simple sieve is not enough; I have to filter much more strongly (with a towel, for example). The use of an emulsifier such as lecithin would also make sense.

And now we are faced with a third problem. And that's the problem of durability. My purist oat milk doesn't have a very long shelf life, generally I read in various online sources that I should use this product within three days. It's quite similar with Barista oat milk. I can extend the shelf life by boiling the product and bottling it hot. The germs are killed in the process and I can therefore prepare my milk alternative in advance.

Homemade oat milk? My sad realizations!

My motivation for producing a milk alternative myself is obvious: I basically want to use products whose contents I can control myself. I also want to use products that are sustainable. In the end I also want to be able to keep the price low. The finished products - you can calculate back and forth and talk things up or down - of course have an additional price premium because they represent a kind of cult, scene or in-product.

Nevertheless, I was amazed at how little material and work I was able to produce a puristic alternative that can even be used to a certain extent. If you, like me, can cope with the lack of taste in oat milk, you will save a lot of money. The absolutely low production effort is also astonishing and bears little relation to the price of the industrial products. The other sad realization, however, is that the taste is missing. Ultimately, taste, usability and durability are factors that should not be underestimated. Nevertheless, it is clear to me in the future that I will experiment and expand my personal skills accordingly and resort to the really cheaper homemade products.

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