Post #335873 by Scottes on Mon, Oct 1, 2007 4:45 PM

I'm going to revive this for a damned handy "tool" that I ran into recently, and man does it help when making Orgeat from blanched almonds...

To quote The Gnomon from page 1:

The Gnomon wrote:
Next I take my colander-filtered milk and strain it through a screen strainer. If I were to go directly to the cheescloth without this and the preceding step, it would take forever to remove the almond gunk from the milk. It clogs up the cheesecloth easily, so nothing drains. If you have to squeeze the cheesecloth too hard, it breaks and sends almond gunk down into the filtered reservoir.

I found Nylon Straining Bags at a local beer- and wine-making shop. Basically they're nylon cheesecloth bags, washable, reusable, and strong. They're made for straining the juice from grapes and such. I found them in Fine and Coarse, and I think they both are useful - use the coarse for the first straining or two, and the fine for the final squeeze. The Coarse is actually quite fine, and the Fine is insanely fine. When folded the bag can be supported in a colander for simple straining. Finally, use the Fine and pour the almond mash inside and squeeze - you can squeeze the heck out of the almond goop with these. And then you just turn them inside-out and throw them in the washing machine. Very nice.

http://www.beer-wine.com/product.asp?sectionID=1&CategoryID=12&productID=1112

[ Edited by: Scottes 2007-10-01 18:24 ]