Can you make your own oat milk powder at home?

What is oat milk powder?

Oat milk powder is a plant-based powdered milk made from dehydrating liquid oat milk.

It is commonly used as a more sustainable alternative to store bought plant milk or simply as a replacement for milk powder in recipes. 

Oat milk powder is also frequently used for travel and camping due to its portability and naturally longer shelf life. 

Can you make oat milk powder at home?

Whilst you might have thought oat milk powder is just finely ground oats (a.k.a oat flour), this isn’t the case.

Finely ground oats are naturally quite starchy and when mixed with water, the starch gelatinises, which means it absorbs the water causing the granules to swell.

This results in a gloopy textured liquid more comparable to a paste, rather than a milk. 

The finer the oats are ground the gloopier the final product, as a lower particle size is more susceptible to gelatinisation and a gloopy final product.

As a result, it’s not possible to make oat milk powder at home without specialist commercial drying equipment.

This is because oat milk powder is in fact made by dehydrating liquid oat milk allowing the breakdown of these gloop-inducing starches. More on this below.

How is oat milk powder made?

As we mentioned above, oat milk powder isn’t just finely ground oats. To make oat milk powder, we first need to make liquid oat milk. 

This initially involves the blending of oats and water together into a mixture.

Natural enzymes are then added to break down the starch into simple natural sugars. This process is also known as fermentation.

Now that the gloop inducing starch has been broken down, we are left with a lovely smooth oat milk with a natural sweetness.

To turn this into a powder, we then have to remove the water, and this is done by dehydrating the oat milk. 

It's a bit like if you left a glass of seawater out in the sun, after a few weeks of evaporation you’d be left with only salt. Although the oat milk drying process is much faster!

After it’s dried, we are then left with an oat milk powder which dissolves perfectly in water to form a delicious oat milk. No gloopy mess!

Where can you buy oat milk powder?

Well, if you're looking for oat milk powder, you’re in the right place! Overherd is the UK’s number one oat milk powder. 

We only use organic and gluten-free oats, and we even add calcium and vitamin B12.

Just add water and shake for on-demand & super creamy oat milk. 

If you are in the US, try brands like AddJoi or Magic Oats.

Can you make regular oat milk at home?

Whilst you can’t make oat milk powder at home, you can make your own oat milk using rolled oats, a blender, and a cheesecloth for straining.

It likely won’t be quite as sweet or creamy as store bought oat milk, but it can still work well.

Experiment by adding other ingredients to your preference. Here’s a simple recipe which can act as a good starting point.