Yes, it is recommended that nuts are soaked and dehydrated before becoming nut butters. Reducing the phytic acid helps make the nuts (and nut butters) more digestible and also keeps the raw quality of the nuts. In most commercial nut butters, the nuts are roasted at higher temperatures and then ground into butter, thus keeping most of the phytic acid and losing many nutrients from the roasting process.

The only exception *I* make to this rule, is peanut butter. If you’re going to make peanut butter, do roast the peanuts. Raw peanut butter made from soaked and dehydrated nuts does not taste very good in my opinion. We rarely eat peanut butter anyway with the high polyunsaturated fat content, so I feel this can be a compromise.