Milky Plant Plus Review

Design and features

• 500ml and 1-litre options
• 2-litre water tank
• Touchscreen controls

The Milky Plant Plus is larger than the Milky Plant, but there are reasons for its increased size. One is a bigger 2-litre water tank at the back of the machine, complete with handle and separate lid: great for filling in-situ.

Another is the ability to heat, both when making milk, and during a deep clean cycle. This results in needing more power. Its blending requirement might be a mere 300W for its 32,000 RPM, but the heating can demand up to 1200W. There’s also a larger filter to help reduce clogging.

Overall, it feels well-built: while most exterior parts are plastic – available in Space Grey or Milky White – inside, it’s made from glass and stainless steel.

Making milk is straightforward. There’s a touchscreen that gives the option of hot/cold or 500ml/1 litre of milk, as well as running rinsing and cleaning programmes. Dry ingredients (eg nuts, grains, seeds) are measured using the included scoops, popped into a hopper at the top, which wets and grinds them before blending with water.

Heat is added if chosen, then the mixture is strained by a filter and dispensed at the front into a glass jug below. Making cold milk can take as little as three minutes while hot takes more like 20.

The self-cleaning programmes takes care of most of the mess: after each use, it recommends a rinse, with a weekly run of the cleaning function. This involves removing the filter and inserting a brush in its place. However, you’ll still need to clean the filter by hand.  

Performance

• Easy to use
• Oats can be messy
• Can be noisy rinsing

While the instructions for the Milky Plant Plus are better than some with illustrations and text, they’re not exhaustive. For example, the filter splits apart for cleaning by hand, but there’s no mention of it, or that you might need a small brush to give it a decent clean. Similarly, there’s no clue if any of the parts could be cleaned in a dishwasher, though presumably the stainless-steel scoops and the glass jug would fare fine.

Fortunately, the colour touchscreen is good at guiding you through the machine’s operation, meaning you may not need to have the instructions at hand once you’re up to speed. My only concern is that the rinse programme – a five-minute clean with water – and the clean programme – an eight-minute cycle using heat too – look similar to each other, so you could choose the wrong one and be waiting around longer than required, or not be cleaning as thoroughly as you think. The clean programme also requires a detergent capsule, adding to the Milky Plant Plus’s lifetime running cost.

What I did like is that using the machine has been well thought-out: a handle on the potentially heavy water tank means it’s easy to carry to the sink, while there’s no need for scales when measuring out dry ingredients thanks to the labelled scoops.

I began by making 1 litre of cold oat milk: the machine isn’t suitable for hot oat milk, presumably because you’d end up with porridge clogging the filter. Two scoops of oats were about 60g and the process took just under five mins.

It can be quite noisy, both in operation and when rinsing before and after, although its manufacturer states that it’s been made to be quieter than the Milky Plant. One issue I found was that the filter cup can sometimes need extra pressure to lock in properly and the machine won’t start until you do.

The glass jug has a wide spout but it pours smoothly, although trying to decant oat milk into a bottle left mess on the worktop, and it’s a shame that there’s no included bottle

However, the oat milk’s appearance was good: white rather than the sometimes-greyish tone of shop-bought, with a mild but pleasant flavour. While the texture wasn’t as viscous as premade, the milk also wasn’t heavy with emulsifiers, seed oils or gums. After 10 minutes, residue gathered at the bottom of the jug.

Overnight, it gathered more residue but kept its milky colour. There was, however, gluey residue in the filter, which I had to scrape out and scrub away.

Then I ran a rinse to prevent flavour crossover.

Next was 500ml of cold cashew milk. This used only one scoop of nuts, which I weighed to be about 40g. Again, the Milky Plant Plus Plant Milk Maker took just under five minutes to make milk, rather than the three I’d hoped for.

The cashew milk was much foamier than the oat, and thicker with the residue better suspended initially, although overnight this settled to about the same degree. It was smooth, with a pleasant mouthfeel.

Next, I made 500ml of hot cashew milk. The scoop for this is half the size, so about 20g of nuts. The machine followed the same water spraying over and grinding process then began to heat the mixture.

Towards the end of the process, steam emerged from the top of the hopper.

The dispensing temperature of the milk was around 80°C, and while the consistency was similar to the cold cashew milk, it had a much richer flavour.

After making both batches of cashew milk, the filter had very little residue to clean away.

I finished by running the cleaning cycle, but without detergent. This heats the water inside up to around 95°C. However, after a few minutes the machine stopped cleaning and the screen froze. Turning it off and back on again, it produced an E3 error, which pointed to a messy sensor. This suggests that a rinse may be needed after every cycle, rather than being able to make consecutive batches of the same milk (even though the tutorial says it’s not necessary). If you’re making several litres for a large family over a few days, this could prolong the process.

Cashew milk worked out as more expensive to make but still cheaper than the supermarket. Based on a 200g bag costing £1.75, and 1 litre of cold milk requiring 80g of cashews, that would cost 70p per litre: compared to shop-bought, which is around £2-3.

Should you buy it?