Plant-Based Milk Production: The Mixing and Separation Behind Dairy-Alternative Drinks

Plant-based milk production, Oat, almond, soy and other dairy-alternative drinks are one of the fastest-growing categories in food and beverage. Making a plant-based milk that is smooth, stable and pleasant to drink is harder than it looks: the process has to extract solids from a raw base, remove the parts nobody wants to drink, and hold everything in a stable suspension that will not separate on the shelf.

Plant-based milk production is fundamentally a mixing and separation challenge, and Advanced Packaging Systems (APS) supplies the Silverson and Russell Finex equipment behind it in New Zealand.

Self-Cleaning Russell Eco Filter®

Why Plant-Based Drinks Are Difficult to Make Well

A dairy-alternative drink has to do several things at once: carry finely divided plant solids in suspension without settling, feel smooth rather than gritty or chalky, resist separation of added oils and water, and stay stable through processing and storage. Each of these depends on the processing equipment as much as the recipe. The key steps are extracting and reducing the base material, separating out insoluble fibre, and dispersing the stabilisers and oils that build body and keep the drink together.

Extraction and Wet Milling

Production starts by breaking down the base material, soaked oats, nuts, seeds or pulses, in water to release its solids into suspension. A Silverson high shear mixer draws the liquid and solids into its workhead and subjects them to intense milling and hydraulic shear, disintegrating the solids and reducing particle size to create a fine, uniform slurry. Doing this thoroughly improves extraction yield and gives a smoother base to work from. Silverson supplies high-speed and high shear mixers, including batch, in-line and ultra-high-speed models, to suit the base material and the scale of production.

Russell Finex Screener

Removing Insoluble Fibre and Pulp

Once the base is milled, the insoluble material — bran, hulls, okara and coarse fibre — has to be separated out to leave a smooth, drinkable liquid. Russell Finex vibratory sieves and separators screen the slurry to remove this insoluble fraction cleanly and at volume, in a hygienic, enclosed unit. Getting this separation right is what determines the mouthfeel and appearance of the finished drink, and the separated solids can often be recovered as a by-product for other food uses.

Dispersing Stabilisers and Building Body

Plant-based milks rely on gums and stabilisers, gellan, guar, locust bean gum and others, to hold the plant solids in suspension and prevent sedimentation, and on emulsified oils to build a creamy mouthfeel. These ingredients are difficult to add: gums clump and only partially hydrate if simply stirred in, and oil will separate from water without sufficient shear. A Silverson high shear mixer disperses and hydrates the stabilisers fully, dissolves added sugars, and emulsifies the oil phase into a fine, stable emulsion. The result is an even suspension that resists separation on the shelf. The underlying principle is the same one described in the APS guide to emulsification in food production.

Silverson Mixer with a custom-built tank

Fortification and Ingredient Screening

Dairy-alternative drinks are commonly fortified with proteins, vitamins and minerals to match the nutrition of dairy milk, and these are often added as powders. Incorporating them without lumps again calls for high shear mixing, while incoming dry ingredients, plant protein isolates, oat flour, sugar and mineral premixes, are safety-screened on Russell Finex sieves to remove foreign material before they enter the process. This protects both product quality and the manufacturer’s ability to demonstrate consistent standards to customers and export markets.

The Silverson Range for Plant-Based Drinks

Silverson supplies mixers to suit each stage and scale of plant-based drink production, all built to hygienic standards suited to food and beverage processing:

• High-speed and ultra-high-speed mixers — for wet milling and disintegrating the raw base;
• Batch mixers — for stabiliser hydration, sugar dissolving and emulsification in vessels;
• In-line mixers — for continuous or higher-volume production, mounted in the process pipework;
• Powder/liquid mixers — for rapid, dust-free incorporation of proteins, flours and stabilisers.

All are designed for clean-in-place (CIP) operation and the hygienic construction expected in food and beverage environments.

Plant-Based Drink Production in New Zealand

As New Zealand producers expand into oat, almond, soy and other dairy alternatives, the processing equipment behind the product is what makes a smooth, stable, consistent drink possible. Advanced Packaging Systems supplies and supports Silverson high shear mixers and Russell Finex screening and separation equipment for New Zealand food and beverage manufacturers, and the APS technical team can specify the right mixing and separation equipment for a given base and recipe, and support it locally from its Auckland base. Contact APS to discuss equipment for a new or existing plant-based milk production line.