How to Make Powdered Milk Step by Step

Get more milk than you can handle from your cows? Don’t let it go to waste, learn how to powder it yourself. This simple act of preserving milk often needlessly intimidates folks who have never seen it done before.

Powdering milk is yet another way to preserve the milk garnered on your homestead. It is equally simple to can or freeze milk. Approximately 13 teaspoons of powdered milk will yield about 1 cup of reconstituted milk.

Powdering (or “drying”) your own milk will not only save you money, but it will also ensure constant access to dairy products on the homestead even if your favorite milk cow or goat suddenly dies or a potentially long-term disaster strikes.

Powdered milk doesn’t taste quite as good as fresh milk, but it doesn’t taste bad either – and will still be free of the ills that can come from commercially pasteurized and processed milk.

The heat process used to powder milk should not be confused with pasteurization. Drying milk does not destroy the iron, vitamins, beneficial fiber, and minerals found in milk.

What you eliminate during the powdering process is excess moisture and fluid. No chemicals, preservatives, or additives of any type are needed when powdering milk.

Any type of milk can be powdered. Skim milk seems to be the easiest to powder because of its low-level fat content. You should strain or at least, home pasteurize milk before drying and not use raw milk in the powdering process.

Dehydrating Goat Milk – Don’t Do It!

If you need to preserver goat milk rather than cow milk, do note that the former has a slightly higher fat content. Honestly, you may want to look into freezing it (or possibly some other methods) if this is the case: it’s quicker and easier, too!

Shelf Life

Commercial dried milk typically has a shelf life of about 20 years, but the one you make yourself in a dehydrator will last significantly less. Expect it to last around 6 months depending how you store it. Plus, full-fat powdered milk won’t last as long as skim milk because fat tend to oxidize go rancid quicker compared to proteins or carbs.

As for storage conditions, ideally, you should consider:

• an airtight container (such as a Mylar bag)
• adding oxygen absorbers
• keeping it in the fridge, though temperatures up to 50ºF / 10ºC are acceptable

One workaround to the fat issue is to use maltodextrin, a common additive. This ingredient forms a protective coating around the milk molecules. My recipe doesn’t use that, however, so if you want to go this route, you’ll have to do more research about how much maltodextrin to use and how to use it.

Spray Drying

This is often considered the simplest way to powder milk. It generally generates more particles than either of the other two powdered milk methods.

There is nothing wrong with either of the other two methods, as far as nutrient count and effort and energy used to complete the process, spray drying is merely often deemed the simplest and most effective method – because the end result has such longevity and takes up little space to store.

Proper drying and storage of powdered milk, and all other dried food stuffs, is crucial. Mold, bacteria, and fungus cannot grow in the absence of moisture.

The dehydrated milk must be 100 percent and thoroughly dry before being stored and MUST be kept in an airtight container – preferably vacuum-sealed glass or plastic container.

Consult the recipe to see what texture or consistency the final product should be. Let the pieces cool off because assessing their dryness.

After pouring the milk into the dehydrator trays, set your machine on the fruits and vegetables settings – or 135 degrees.

I recommend you never use more than four trays in a standard residential dehydrator, no matter how many you have or machine capacity noted in the instruction manual.

The more trays you have, the longer anything will take to dehydrate, running up your electric bill in the process. I have found that it is actually less time-consuming to dehydrate four or fewer trays in two separate sessions than to put too many on the machine at any single time.

You will quickly learn if your kitchen counter is 100% level when pouring milk into a dehydrator tray.

You can tell by the spaces that show portions of the plastic tray liner, that my counter is not as level as I thought. Test the levelness of your counter by pouring a little bit of water in the tray first, to avoid spoiled milk.

If you cannot find a good level spot on your counter to dehydrate liquids, consider using an extension cord to connect the machine to an outlet and placing it on the kitchen table instead.

I would have gone this route, but far too often a dog or grandchild runs around the kitchen table, and not only spilled milk, but a broken dehydrator surely would have occurred.

Note: Solar dehydrating of milk is not possible. The milk would spoil long before the drying process would be complete – and foster the growth of bacteria.

The tray closest to the top of the dehydrator sometimes causes scorched milk, hence the yellow cast on the dehydrated milk in this tray. There’s nothing wrong with the milk, it is still dehydrated and safe to use, it just boasts an unattractive hue:

Because I routinely fill my dehydrator trays only halfway full with milk, the flakes are fine enough to crinkle in my hand to turn into a powder:

You can use your food processor or blender to grind the dehydrated milk into powder if the dried milk is too thick to crumble.

Once you have flakes that resembled manufactured powdered milk, simply put them in a Mason jar or vacuum-sealed bag, and store them until you are ready to use.

I use the attachment that came with the vacuum sealing machine to also seal the Mason jars as extra protection against moisture.

Dehydrating Milk in an Oven With the Help of a Double Boiler

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 150 °F (65 °C). Many ovens will not go down to a temperature this low.
2. Pour up to two gallons of milk into a double boiler
3. Simmer the milk for about two hours – stir occasionally to prevent scorching and add a little bit of water if necessary
4. Once the milk develops a visibly creamy texture, pour it into a deep pan.
5. Place the pan in the oven – leave the door slightly ajar to allow excess moisture to evaporate.
6. Once the milk is thoroughly dry, remove the pan and allow it to cool to room temperature. The drying process will take approximately as long as it would in a dehydrator – perhaps just slightly shorter.
7. Run the dried milk through your food processor or blender and store it as noted above.

Reconstituting Powdered Milk

When reconstituting dried milk, you only need two ingredients:

• powdered milk
• water

A 2:1 two parts water and one part milk ratio should always be used as a rule of thumb, regardless of the type of milk or the chosen drying method. But some folks use different ratios, such as 1, 2 or 3 tablespoons of dried milk for every cup of water. definitely experiment to see what works best for you and the type of milk you used.

Add milk slowly, about 1 teaspoon at a time, to help ensure you don’t end up with far too watery of a milk product – and risk ruining your recipes. YOu also want to avoid adding the water over the powder to avoid it clumping together.

So there you have it! It tastes just like regular milk… well, sort of! You can even add a dash of vanilla extract or powder into the mix for some extra flavor…

Reconstituted Milk Conversion Chart

Powdered Milk	Water	Milk Yield
3 Tablespoons	1 Cup`	1 Cup
2 ¼ Tablespoons	¾ Cup	¾ Cup
2 Tablespoons	2/3 Cup	2/3 Cup
1 ½ Tablespoons	½ Cup	½ Cup
1 Tablespoon	1/3 Cup	1/3 Cup
¾ Tablespoon	¼ Cup	¼ Cup

Reconstituted Powdered Milk Tips and Recipes

Reconstituted milk can be used pretty much anywhere you would use regular milk: in smoothies, baking, with your morning cereal, sauces, in puddings, soups, and anything else you can think of!

As a tip, assuming you preserver milk this way regularly and label the containers, you should use the “older” powdered milk for baking, keeping the “fresher” one for reconstituting it into milk or using it in smoothies.

With Cereal

When using reconstituted powdered milk with cereal, add about 3 tablespoons for each ½ cup of either dry cereal or oatmeal – and the same amount of water.

Add up to ½ of a cup of reconstituted powdered milk or ¼ of a cup of powdered milk flakes per each 1 cup of water or regular milk used when making gravy, pasta sauces, pudding, broth, or custards to give them additional flavor and to help them thicken.

In Coffee

To infuse your coffee or tea with more calcium, substitute non-fat dry milk for your usual creamer.

To make a thick and deliciously nutritious protein milkshake, add 2 tablespoons of dry milk per recommended recipe serving.

For a more rich meatloaf, use 2/3 of a cup of powdered milk for every pound of ground beef used in the recipe. The flakes also add a rich flavor to meatballs.

When making canned soup or casseroles, add up to ½ of a cup of powdered milk flakes to give them more flavor and a thicker texture.

To make bread, cookies, biscuits, pancakes, cakes, and muffins brown a little bit more quickly and become firmer, add up to ¼ of a cup of powdered milk flakes to the recipe.

Powdered Milk to Evaporated Milk Recipe

Mix together the following ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon and ½ cup of powdered milk
• 1 and ½ cups of water

Powdered Milk to Buttermilk Recipe

Mix together the following ingredients:

• 1 cup of water
• ¼ cup of powdered milk
• 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar or 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. If using the vinegar, it must be allowed to stand for about 10 minutes after being added to the powdered milk and water.

Powdered Milk to Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe

Mix together the following ingredients:

• 1 cup of powdered milk
• 1 tablespoon of buttermilk
• ½ cup of hot water
• 1 cup of sugar

Pudding Mix Recipe

Mix all ingredients together and store all but the reconstituted together and store in an airtight container until ready to mix with the reconstituted powdered milk to cook. This recipe will make about 24 servings.

• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 and ½ cup of sugar
• 1 ¼ cup of flour
• 2 and ½ cups of reconstituted powdered milk

Simply follow the baking instructions in your favorite pudding recipe (or the back of an instant pudding box).

Powdered Milk Cocoa

Ingredients:

• ¾ of a cup of sugar
• 2 and 1/2 cups of powdered milk flakes
• 12 cups of cocoa powder

Instructions

To make hot chocolate, mix four tablespoons of the mixture with 1 cup of boiling water. For chocolate milk, place the hot mixture in the refrigerator until it chills.

Powdered Milk FAQ