Oat milk fridge life?

March 8, 2023 6:54 AM

I bought a container of "Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend" to use in my coffee. I'm new to plant-based milks; do I really need to use it within 7-10 days of opening? I'm a single person that lives alone and there's no way I'm going to use a liter of this stuff in a week.
posted by rhymedirective to Food & Drink (19 answers total)

Yes. Just because something's plant-based doesn't mean it won't go rancid, or become a dangerous bacterial soup over time. 7-10 days seems pretty good to me. You can freeze oat milk, but it tends to develop a bit of an off texture, so maybe not ideal for use in drinks.

Maybe you can find other uses for it? Put it on your breakfast or something?
posted by pipeski at 7:10 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I tend to stretch those dates up until about the two week point. It gets funky after that.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 7:16 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Have you thought of freezing part of it in an ice cube tray? I haven't frozen oat milk but I've frozen other milks and it's fine for coffee or cooking when unfrozen.
posted by Frowner at 7:20 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

You could also freeze it into ice cubes shapes and store it. I wouldn't defrost it for drinking at that point because the texture might be weird, but it would be great for tossing in oatmeal or anything like that. You could try it in coffee amd see if it does ok after being frozen and melted.
posted by CleverClover at 7:22 AM on March 8, 2023

Best answer: I definitely don't use my oat milk (Oatly) within a week of opening. Probably more like two weeks (I buy half gallons and use ~ 1/2 cup each day). I've never noticed a change in quality.
posted by mskyle at 7:27 AM on March 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I've been drinking oat milk for years and I tend to keep it around as long as it still smells fine, which is substantially longer than a week.

I'm otherwise fairly paranoid about stuff going off- if something smells a bit weird, it goes in the bin. But perfectly-fine smelling oat milk has never done me any harm.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:31 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

As the family's only almond milk person, this is something I think about every week or so. I tend to let nature take its course and finish up in about two weeks at most. I have only once had an "off" taste in almond milk, which, weirdly, made it taste more like dairy, but I wasn't sick. I did throw the rest away, though.

If I have a really big amount I know I won't finish, I make something like steel-cut oatmeal with it. For coffee creamer, you wouldn't want that, although using it in cereal would be nice. (As a kid I briefly used half and half for cereal, not understanding it would be missed at coffee time, and it was so good.) Here are some recipes that use coffee creamer -- presuming dairy, so YMMV, but I substitute plant milks all the time. Oat milk is rich and sweet enough to be a good substitute for dairy in general.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:33 AM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: We use oat milk until it goes visibly mouldy (2-4 weeks after opening if kept refrigerated) and haven't experienced any quality or health issues from doing so.
posted by terretu at 7:51 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seven to ten days seems overly short to me. I don't typically use the Califia Farms brand, but I use a lot of other non-dairy milks and creamers, and they're often in the fridge for considerably longer than ten days. I haven't had an issue with them going bad.
posted by alex1965 at 8:06 AM on March 8, 2023

Best answer: Oat milk lasts ages, it's one of the reasons I use it. My comparison point is silk extra creamy style, for what it's worth.
posted by dbx at 8:16 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: i use almond milk and keep it around after opening until the smell or texture has gone off. never had a problem.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:26 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I use more soy milk than oat, but for any plant milk, I almost never use it all within 10 days, probably up to 3 weeks is normal, and I have never had an issue with it going off. Make sure you're being sanitary with the container - obviously don't drink from the spout, but even avoid touching it with your hands, to limit bacteria that makes its way back in.
posted by obfuscation at 8:29 AM on March 8, 2023

It may be something of a placebo effect, but when I buy a carton of oat or almond milk, I pour half of it into a clean, sanitized mason jar, vacuum seal it with a canning lid, and store it in the fridge. The rest stays in the carton. When the carton is empty and I open the jar, usually a week or two later, the jarred portion tastes as fresh as when I first opened the carton. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, manual jar vacuum pumps are relatively inexpensive. I got that kit to use with my vacuum sealer, and I use the hand pump all the time to quickly re-seal a jar. I've started storing a lot of perishables this way (vacuum-sealed jars in the fridge), everything from pesto and pizza sauce to yogurt to milk, leftover soup, etc. and everything seems to stay fresher so much longer.
posted by xedrik at 9:05 AM on March 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

Workaround: I buy oat milk “juice boxes” (meant for lunchboxes) and use that instead. They’re 250ml (one cup). More packaging waste, but I use oat milk so infrequently that I was throwing out most of it when I bought litre packs.
posted by third word on a random page at 10:39 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

The bottom shelf is coldest, esp. the back of the fridge. If freezing it is unsuccessful, decent half of it into a clean jar, shove it in the back of the bottom shelf.
posted by theora55 at 11:13 AM on March 8, 2023

Best answer: I know it's a bad idea so I don't RECOMMEND it exactly, but I've had no issues drinking almond milk TWO MONTHS after opening it.
posted by metasarah at 11:23 AM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've had almond milk last lots longer, but after around 2 weeks my oat milk carton got a little puffed out and it smelled off. So the 7-10 days may be a little conservative, but in my experience it's not good much longer than that.
posted by bizzyb at 11:35 AM on March 8, 2023

I'm a single person that lives alone and there's no way I'm going to use a liter of this stuff in a week.

I’m not single, but I am the only coffee drinker in the house, and also have an issue finishing an entire container of oatmilk. Last year, I discovered Silk’s oat/coconut blend Half-n-Half product. It is super creamy and comes in much more manageable quart boxes.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:42 PM on March 8, 2023

Where I am, they sell oat milk a couple of different ways. You can find some of it in cartons that need refrigeration, and others are sold in 1 quart/946 mL size shelf stable asepticly packaged cartons. I've had one oat milk from the refrigerator section go bad on me, and it was instantly obvious because it smelled bad. When I buy the aseptic quart size cartons, they last me way longer than 7 - 10 days, and I've always used it up before it has gone bad.
posted by gudrun at 12:49 PM on March 9, 2023 [1 favorite]