Home brew orgeat

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 ]

Heck yes, these are definitely the way to go! I strained the water-laden goop through the Coarse, doing a basic separation of the liquid leaving wet almond mash. I then loaded a fist-full of wet mash at a time into the bag and squeezed the heck out of it, getting the rest of the liquid out. Finally I laid the Fine into the colander with another bowl underneath and strained to get the last final bits of almond out. Total time to strain 2 quarts of almond milk was about 10 minutes, and pretty darned painless and very clean. And they're re-usable. Nice.

[ Edited by: Scottes 2007-10-02 07:16 ]

On 2007-10-01 19:07, Scottes wrote:

And then you just turn them inside-out and throw them in the washing machine. Very nice.

Do I throw them in with my other delicates? Or can I wash them with my Aloha shirts? Scottes, I think you may have turned the Tide on this one. Orgeat with a hint of Downey.

Thanks for the link. It sounds like a winner. Extracting the almond milk from the mash is the most tedious stage of making orgeat. The second is making the mash. If you can solve the straining problem, then it will give incentive to make a lot more real orgeat (as opposed to Emergency).

Its effectiveness will reveal itself when the orgeat layers. Usually, there are three layers: the froth at the top; the syrup in the middle; and the residual almond particles falling to the bottom. If you can eliminate the particles at the bottom, then you've hit the jackpot. The froth at the top is to be expected (desirable actually) and is fairly easily removed. If your orgeat doesn't layer at all when you've finished cooking and let it sit, you've done something wrong. The particles at the bottom, however, are a reflection of the efficiency in the straining process.

I'm looking forward to ordering a couple of bags (coarse and fine) and trying it out.

I effectively had ZERO particles.

Of course, there were some, but a way-less-than-insignificant amount.

Another tip or two from what I learned last night...

The amount of water you use when soaking the crushed almond is somewhat important if you have 1 bottle and want maximum almond flavor. If you want 750ml of orgeat, I'd use about 600ml of water if you use the nylon bags and squeeze like heck, or 650ml if you wimpily strain and lose some water left in the almond mash. When you add sugar you'll come back up to the level needed to fill a bottle. (I'm estimating the numbers here a little bit.)

I didn't measure when I soaked and used too much water. I'd rather have a stronger almond taste rather than some left over, so I then put the almond milk on the stove and tried to reduce it by simmering. It didn't reduce, and it did change color since it cooks easily and it ended up the color of a demerara simple syrup. Of course, the taste is off a bit. While I like this taste - it's now an interesting simple syrup - I don't consider it a real orgeat and I plan to do another batch.

Darcy O'Neill at the Art Of Drink recommends 500mg of almonds & 800ml of water. My recommendation - since I like the strong almond taste - is 750mg of almonds and 700ml of water. Darcy's is probably more authentic but I just like the extra almond boost. You could add some high-quality almond extract to boost the almond taste but the taste of orgeat is not quite the same as almond extract. The orgeat is a heck of a lot more interesting.

Oh, and since I mentioned Darcy's recipe let me say that I would never, ever use "table sugar" as he recommends. It's so highly refined that it's just sweet and blech. Do yourself a favor and use sugar from evaporated cane juice. If you don't have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or some other organic market around, then check your local StupidMarket for the Domino brand stuff.

Lastly, I don't know if it's mentioned above but be sure to separate the layers of Almond Milk before adding the sugar!

On 2007-10-02 07:37, Scottes wrote:
Another tip or two from what I learned last night...

The amount of water you use when soaking the crushed almond is somewhat important if you have 1 bottle and want maximum almond flavor. If you want 750ml of orgeat, I'd use about 600ml of water if you use the nylon bags and squeeze like heck, or 650ml if you wimpily strain and lose some water left in the almond mash. When you add sugar you'll come back up to the level needed to fill a bottle. (I'm estimating the numbers here a little bit.)

Right you are. The strongest of the milk remains with the mash unless you can squeeze it out. That's the whole point/virtue of the bags you located. You have the ability to squeeze that out rather effortlessly. Woo hoo!

I didn't measure when I soaked and used too much water. I'd rather have a stronger almond taste rather than some left over, so I then put the almond milk on the stove and tried to reduce it by simmering. It didn't reduce, and it did change color since it cooks easily and it ended up the color of a demerara simple syrup. Of course, the taste is off a bit. While I like this taste - it's now an interesting simple syrup - I don't consider it a real orgeat and I plan to do another batch.

Had I ever done a step by step here of the complete cooking process, I'd have emphasized that you need to use a candy thermometer (about a foot long and ½" thick with a little clip to hold it to the side of your pot) and carefully control the cooking temperature so as not to get too close to boiling. Otherwise, you get that toasted almond effect, and not in a particularly good way.

One method of accelerating the milk extraction speed is to heat the water and almond mash. I do not recommend that option. For me it has degraded the quality while only speeding things up a little. So I recommend letting it sit overnight or longer. The method for heating the water and mash is to maintain a temperature of halfway to boiling for about 15 minutes or so. Halfway to boiling is 50°C (let's see 212 minus 32 equals 180 divided by 2 equals 90 plus 32 equals 122°F ... or you could do 125° which is easier to track on the thermometer).

When it comes to actually cooking the syrup, you want to make sure you don't overheat it, so I'll hike up the temperature from halfway to boiling to somewhere between two thirds (67°C/152°F) and three quarters(75°C/167°F), or thereabouts. The cooler the temp the longer it takes, but it is far better to take longer and have a great end result than suffer the consequences of scalding the almonds. At the first sign of color change (which is harder to detect if you are using a dark sugar), you have to take it off the heat and try to cool it off rapidly (sit the pot down in a big pan of cold water). To be on the safe side, don't crank up the heat too much in the first place.

Darcy O'Neill at the Art Of Drink recommends 500mg of almonds & 800ml of water. My recommendation - since I like the strong almond taste - is 750mg of almonds and 700ml of water. Darcy's is probably more authentic but I just like the extra almond boost. You could add some high-quality almond extract to boost the almond taste but the taste of orgeat is not quite the same as almond extract. The orgeat is a heck of a lot more interesting.

I like it strong as well. I also like a heavier dose of rose water and orange flower water than you find in commercial orgeat.

I don't go by specific weight and volume. You've seen the plastic containers I use from a previous post. I fill the water until it covers all of the almond mash. If the almond doesn't sit in the water it isn't going to milk. Whatever mash weight to water volume that turns out to be, I don't know or care. If you don't put in enough water to reach all of the almond mash nuggetrines (nugget smitherines) then you won't be milking all of your mash. If you put way too much water in, then you're just watering down your milk. I don't think you should go by strict measures. Go by where the water level reaches all of the almond material. A little too much water is better than not quite enough.

As for almond extract. I consider it a doctoring tool to help keep a botched batch from becoming a total loss. But it is made from bitter almonds rather than the sweet almonds used in the orgeat. It is a different almond flavor, albeit one that is more familiar to most than that of sweet almonds. The goal in making orgeat is to capture the essence of the sweet almonds.

NOTE: Some old recipes call for a mixture of both sweet and bitter almonds to go into the orgeat. Do not follow those recipes. Bitter almonds contain a decent jolt of cyanide. Before using bitter almonds for anything they must first be stripped of their toxins. This is done, of course, in the process of making pure almond extract. If you don't detoxify your bitter almonds before using them to make orgeat, enjoy your hydrogen cyanide while supplies or you last.

Oh, and since I mentioned Darcy's recipe let me say that I would never, ever use "table sugar" as he recommends. It's so highly refined that it's just sweet and blech. Do yourself a favor and use sugar from evaporated cane juice. If you don't have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or some other organic market around, then check your local StupidMarket for the Domino brand stuff.

I agree on the quality sugar, however, I do make different kinds of orgeat and I rather enjoy the batches where I use turbinado sugar (I use Sugar in the Raw from Maui—readily available in markets all over). Using various kinds of sugar will impact the color of the orgeat (and flavor, of course). Using the evaporated cane sugar (which I do mostly) seems to bring out the almond color rather than impart any of its own to a noticeable degree.

Lastly, I don't know if it's mentioned above but be sure to separate the layers of Almond Milk before adding the sugar!

Yep. You'll get some layering after the sugar is cooked in, no matter what. If you don't try to reduce the layers while the milk is just milk, then you will end up with some heavy duty layers after your finished syrup sits for a while.

As for the rum—I used various kinds in very small batches (especially, Emergency), but for my standard batches I use W&N White Overproof. I have yet to find anything that can match or surpass it when it comes to orgeat. Just from experience, I get the impression that W&N WO was created for such purposes. I don't know of that many drinks where it really fits in. But I use it for all of my rum infusions (sorry, I haven't yet checked out that link you posted in Bumbo), and all of my fruit soaking, in my containers of fresh guava, passion fruit, and mango pulps, and just about everything else that's not a drink.

OK, real good info here. Except the lack of measurements. :)

Re: Squeezing. My better half says