Well here we have it!!!  The post we've all been waiting for........soy milk making Monday and soy milk drinking Tuesday:)

We began thinking about buying this machine in early summer but the price made us keeping pushing back the idea.  Currently we were spending 75.00 per month in soy milk and the machine cost ~120.00.  We were so excited to get the machine as a Christmas gift from my parents.  We bought a 25 lb bag of organic soy beans for 38.00 at Whole Foods, and it takes 1/2 cup of beans each time you make it.  Here is our fancy dancy soy milk makin' machine!!

The Outside

The Inside

The 25 lb'er of beans

Next you have to put the soybeans to soak in water on the counter top for 8 hours. They grow 3 times their original size as a dry bean.

Here are the dry beans in the bowl before the water was added.

And here are the beans after they soaked for 8 hours.

Next you rinse and drain the beans from the water.  Inside of the soy milk machine is a water fill line.  You fill the bottom of the machine with fresh water and then poar the rinsed soy beans into the machine.  Here is what the clean water and rinsed soy bean looks like:

Next you put the top on the machine, turn it on the soy bean setting and 16 minutes later you have warm soy milk.  The machine is very quiet the majority of the 16 minutes.  I would say for about 1 minute it sounds as though it is grinding the bean.  After the 16 minutes you have to pour the soy milk in the pitcher with a strainer on top of the pitcher (it came with the machine) and the strainer collects the soy bean shells.

Here it is being poured directly from the machine.

This is the left over of the bean shells to which we are able to compost.

The end result!

It is very warm becuase it has been heated to approximately 180 degrees, so it needs to be cooled down, and some sort of sweetner added (honey, brown rice syrup, vanilla).  The soy milk that you buy at the store even when it is "original" has a lot of sugar!  The taste directly out of the machine is different.

Ready  to be enjoyed:)

We are still playing around with the flavoring, but as of now it is going to be soy milk making, money saving, and more environmentally friendly becuase we will have no waste from the store bought soy milk carton!!!  I do believe our new adventure can be deemed a success!!!

~Mama Betsy