history of soy yogurt, soy acidophilus milk and other ... - SoyInfo Center

make use of the steam boiler that was located there. Even
though it had a wooden fl oor, it was a great improvement
for the dairies production. They immediately added some
steam jacketed cooking kettles acquired from a scrap yard
and production capacity doubled to 150 gallons of soymilk
a day. The slow points of operation were now the grinding,
separation of milk and okara and cooling of the milk. They
began hot blanching the soy beans before grinding for
improved fl avor. A 150 gallon refrigerated milk tank was
added to handle the increase in milk production. While
looking for an improved separating system, one that could be
continuous, David and Laurie started eyeing some equipment
that had been scrapped by one of the Farm’s crews. The
equipment came from an old evaporated milk plant and
included a vibrating separator and a tubular heat exchanger.
The separator was converted for the use of the wet soymilk
separation. A stainless frame was built to fi t in the vibrator
with a cloth secured around it. The milk was bucketed and
later pumped over the screen while the vibrator was on. The
milk fl owed through the screen and out the end into a holding
tank. The pulp was sprayed with a little water to wash out the
milk and the pulp was deposited into buckets. The tubular
heat exchanger was converted to be used as a pre-cooler.
Cold tap water was run through jacket that surrounded inner
stainless tubing that the milk was pumped through. A wet
corn masa mill was made by Michael Halpin to be used to
grind corn for tortillas and to grind the soybeans for the
dairy. Now the grinding time was no problem and production
increased to 200 gallons of milk a day. Tofu was still not
being made on a community scale as the milk came out
of the separator too cold to curd properly. Laurie was also
making thirty to forty gallons of yogurt a week.” Address:
17969 Oak Dr., Los Gatos, California 95030.
590. Praskin, Laurie Sythe. 1985. The Farm soy history: An
overview. Document part IV. Los Gatos, California. 10 p.
Dec. 1. Unpublished manuscript. [Eng]
• Summary: Continued: “In 1977, Laurie visited her home
town in California. She went to visit her favorite Japanese
tofu shop and ran into Bill Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi
outside the closed shop. They were delivering a copy of their
Book of Tofu to the owner and tofu maker of the shop. Bill
took Laurie to the tofu makers’ home and helped arrange for
Laurie to observe in his shop for one day. Upon returning
to the Farm, Laurie immediately set up the Farm’s fi rst
tofu shop in a small corner of the soy dairy. She set up a
very simple shop using one of their cooking kettles and
designating it for cooking milk only for tofu. A wash tub was
mounted on a stand with a simple lever for pressing out the
milk. The tub was lined with a coarsely-woven bag, and a
sawed-off whiskey barrel was placed underneath to catch the
milk. A fi ner nylon cloth was stretched over the top to strain
out the fi ner pulp [okara]. Hot milk was bucketed into the
press, the bag twisted shut, and a heavy wooden press plate
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 228
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placed on top. The original wooden tofu box was fi nally in
use as well as two additional round stainless boxes made by
Michael Lovett. The tofu was pressed with cement blocks
or buckets of water. Tofu was made in the whiskey barrel
and a 20 gal [gallon] aluminum Hobart bread bowl. The tofu
shop’s capacity was 200 lb of tofu on a production day. In
total, about 600 lb/wk in addition to 800 to 1000 gal/wk of
soymilk. Most of the tofu went to people with special dietary
needs.
“It seemed very energy ineffi cient to run a separate
tofu and soymilk operation, so technicians started designing
a separator that could service both operations. Michael
Halpin, one of the Farm’s equipment technicians, designed
a hydraulic press which cost less than $1500 to build. This
was the fi rst large amount of money spent by the dairy for
equipment. The inspiration for the money came from the
delicious tofu produced in the small shop. Once everyone
realized how good it was, the decision to invest community
money for improved nutrition followed. The idea of the
press was good, but all of the bugs were never worked out.
It was supposed to require no bag. The milk was pumped
into a stainless cylinder that was drilled with holes and
set inside another stainless holding tank. Then with press
plate and gasket, the hydraulic ram came down from above,
squeezing out the milk. When pressed, there was a trap door
at the bottom that was opened, and the pulp pressed right
out into a container. The trap door shut, and the press was
ready for another batch. The system was supposed to work
easily and effi ciently. It never did. Gasket failures were a
problem, spewing hot soymilk and pulp all over the dairy. In
addition, the trap door never worked easily. In an expedient
measure to get the dairy back in operation, Laurie removed
the cylinder and replaced it with a Japanese pressing sack.
The hot soymilk and pulp pumped into the bag which was
set down in the stainless holding tank. There was a stainless
rack on the bottom to keep the bag off the hole and a
stainless plate was set on top of the bag after it was fi lled.
The hydraulic ram came down and pressed the bag. This
worked all right, but the bag had to be lifted out by hand, and
the position was very awkward and left many sore backs.
The milk went directly into a curding barrel or was pumped
through the tubular heat exchanger. The capacity jumped to
300 gal of milk and 250 lb of tofu approximately 4 days/wk.
At this time, the dairy had concrete fl oors and was starting to
get sheetrocked. Soy yogurt production became unsuccessful
because of the close proximity of the cannery, and vegetable
contamination was airborne. Tempeh was also in the cannery
and experiencing the same diffi culties. Ice cream was very
popular and being produced in large commercial soft-serve
machines. Production of ice cream was varied, but its
popularity was unquestionable.
“While the Farm was piecing together its operation,
a small settlement of Farm members began in Northern
California. In 1976, they opened a small commercial soy deli