Lactose as a sweetener

[Christian]

Thinking about using this to brew a sweet milk stout tomorrow. Anyone have any advise, particularly about dosage for a 23L batch? Think I read that 100 gms should be noticable. Also using a Brewcraft Irish Stout enhancer that has Lactose as an ingredient so don't want to overdo it.

Cheers.

[denimglen]

While I don't have a particularly large amount of hands on experience with those Brewcraft 'Enhancers' I'd stay away from them. By looking at them and their ingredients they're mostly dextrose, which in most cases is a no-no, especially for a milk stout I'd say.

Got a recipe for us to look at mate?

[Christian]

I'm still a fairly basic extract brewer but this is the first time I'll be trying an enhancer pack even though I've suspected they had a high proportion of dextrose given their price. Been trying to do a slightly simpler and cheaper brew after a couple of expensive all extract brews using specialty yeasts with mediocre results.

Keeping the costs down is also why I'll be using a Cooper's Stout kit - I swore off these after one of my first brews was a terrible Cooper's Lager - however, a friend recently used Cooper's stout with a standard enhancer and I was surprised at how dark, malty and drinkable it was.

So basically the recipe will be:

Cooper's Stout LME 1.7Kg
Brewcraft Irish Stout no.72 Enhancer 1Kg
100 gms Lactose
1 cup Molasses
Yeast from standard NZ LME kits

I would generally be adding more malt to a recipe like this but found my friend's brew to be strong enough as is.

Still experimenting with my brews so have trained by tastebuds to have low standards.

[denimglen]

I haven't seen the milk stout enhance but I'd say it's like the rest of them - looks to be about 90% dextrose. Remember that dextrose wwill ferment out completely, it's going to thin the shit out of the beer, definitely not what you want for a milk stout.

I've got a recipe here for JZs Sweet Stout which should get you in the ball park if you brew it, or give you some ideas.

OG 1.060
FG 1.023
IBU 29

Extract:
3.26kg Pale (unhopped) extract
0.45kg Lactose

To Steep:
0.45kg Black Malt
0.34kg Crystal 80
0.23kg Pale Chocolate Malt

43g Goldings hops - 60min boil

Safale SO4 yeast.

If you don't want to go the route of a boil and all that - which I would highly recommend - I'd use two cans of Cooper's Stout, 450g lactose, and about 11g of yeast.

[Christian]

Thanks for the recipe's / advice.

What I forgot to mention is that I already had all the ingredients so didn't want to waste the enhancer pack. Was considering adding another Stout kit to my initial recipe but thought the alcohol content might then get too high for the yeast.

Ended up using my initial recipe but reduced the overall volume from my normal 23L to 20L. Also upped the Lactose to 300 gms (+ amount whatever is in the enhancer).

P.S. It was the Lactose packet that recommended 100 gms but I imagine this would barely show up in a Stout. I tried some and by itself it hardly tastes sweet at all.

Will let you know how it turns out.

[denimglen]

Choice, look forward to hearing how it turns out for you.

I believe the general rule is that lactose is half as sweet as table sugar.

Using two cans (without adding any extra sugar) won't harm the yeast alcohol-wise. The final alcohol will actually be less than one kit plus sugar. Just make sure you're pitching about 10g of yeast into 20-ish L and you'll be fine.

[Christian]

Yeah, lately I've generally been using two cans of extract for my brews. For this recipe I was thinking of using two + the enhancer pack so it didn't go to waste - the calculator I was using was coming up with 8%+ alcohol which I thought might be a problem toward the end of fermentation - hard to know what the exact make-up of the enhancer pack is though.

The enhancer pack with finishing hops in it seemed like a cheap, simple option for this brew but I think I'll stick to all extract brews with finishing hops in future.

Will be looking at steeping grains as the next step in my brewing.

[JoKing]

You wont look back.

Coopers Lager kits are the bomb. Way more hops (for bittering) than most others - and half the price. The base Malt flavour is superior to NZ kits too - at half the price. Get in some Crystal - and before you know it, you'll be dry hopping. All this - and you still dont need a kettle!

You'll end up getting ome though - mark my words.

[Christian]

Maybe I was a bit hard on the Cooper's Lager - it was probably because I only mixed it with Dextrose and brewed it too warm with the kit yeast. Lots of Acetylaldehyde.

Yep, only a matter of time until I get into all grain.

[Benjamin Morehu]

Bump!!

Im lookin at using lactose to correct too low a final gravity. I cant find any reliable info on lactose' potential per litre

Its a long story which Ill cover in my memoirs. The short story is I now have 2 amber ales that Id like to adjust the sweetness of. One is 65 IBU FG 1.011. The other is 80 IBU FG 1.006

What have we learned since 2009?

Whats the potential?

How much is too much ?

[Mike Neilson]

Potential 1.035?? Only brewed with lactose once and it was in a Milk IPA where I just threw in a 1kg for S&G and never thought about the science of it to give me a measured result. So here's a thought mix 10g in 1l of water then measure gravity points, then calc back from that.

[Benjamin Morehu]

Cheers Mike. I reckon that's what I'm gonna have to do