alternatives to dairy milk and yoghurt? - more ramblings

I was fortunate enough to receive on the same day last week a Keimling soyabella milk maker and an Gaggia Gelatiere  which can be used hand in hand to make some wonderful treats.

I bought myself some soya beans, some oat groat and some brown rice last week to experiment making the different  milks, and also some freeze dried strawberry powder, some vanilla extract and some honey to add to the milks for both yoghurt, drinking, baking and ice-cream/sorbets.

Again I have done a lot of reading that will allow me to use these machines to their full,here for my thoughts on ice-cream and how it may or may not be achieved.

The milks should be a bit easier, its what to do once I have made them that will be the challenge. I make 2-3 litres a week of soya yoghurt for personal consumption already, this up until now has been made with uht long life milk as it is by far the cheapest, now whist it has added calcium which my home made stuff will be lacking, though there are ways round that, it does not have the stabilisers and additives the bought milk contains.

If making soya milk from soya beans the residue you have left over is called okara and it contains soluble and non-soluble fiber, protein, calcium and other minerals. It's even more nutritious (because of the high fiber content) than soy milk or tofu.Recipes using this will be coming up as and when I use the stuff and have time to write them up.

Soya yoghurt is as simple to make as dairy yoghurt, Soy yogurt is made by fermenting soymilk with friendly bacteria, mainly Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. The process is similar to the production of yogurt from cow milk. Basically it contains sugars that the bacteria feed on and the bacteria grow and thicken. Home made yoghurt is not as thick as shop bought but again it does not have thickeners etc added, I can live with the thinner yoghurt and am going to be looking at various ways of thickening home made just to see how it works out.

I cannot get my head round why oat and rice milk will not turn into yoghurt even when you add sugar to feed it on, possibly something to do with the fat?  Though I did find a recipe for oat groat yoghurt that seems different but when you think about it it is just letting the bacteria grow just the same. Will try it to see what sort of amount this makes, what it tastes like and what uses I can find for it if it works.

Also wondering if you can use say half and half with 2 different types of milk with soya being one of them to make yoghurt?

I have got some agar flakes that I have popped into tonights soya yoghurt to see if it makes any difference.I also have gelatine, but reluctant to use these sort of things, would rather I could get it to thicken more naturally.

I am also hoping that once I have soya milk and soya yoghurt I can try soya ice-cream.

Will also be trying the 2 other types of milk with the soya yoghurt for ice-cream as well.

Nut milks apparently make good yoghurt due to high fat content but we cant use nuts in this house due to Bobs allergy to them.

ok that's it, home work done, got my head round milks, yoghurt and ice-cream now, so bear with me whilst I create in the kitchen and then give you feedback on the results.