Did I Just Ruin A Milk Stout?
 

Forgot to add the lactose during the boil and decided to add it to the secondary along with the cocoa nibs. I was told by my LHBS that I could pour the lactose straight into the secondary. All well and good, however, I've been reading that I should have dissolved the lactose in boiling water before putting it into the secondary.

Has anyone done anything like this before, if so, what was the result? Kind of hoping I didn't hose this one.

i think you're just going to have to wait this one out and see what happens. there might have been some nasties on the lactose, or maybe not - TBD!

I think your biggest problem will be that the lactose wasn't mixed in evenly, so it could remain concentrated at the bottom of the Carboy.

can you dissolve lactose in your wort boil?

I put mine in at 15 min to dissolve; some put it in at 60 min. My question is, if you just poured it into your secondary, how did you get it to dissolve and avoid clumping?

I don’t think you ruined it, you just did something different. You could always change the name…

"'My lumps' chunky milk stout"

Lactose dissolves in water (clearly illustrated in the case of milk) but as with all sugar solubility increases with temperature. You'll probably end up with some undissolved lactose at the bottom of your fermenter. You can probably take care of it by periodically swirling your fermenter.

I imagine it's not so different from dumping in your priming sugar dry or racking onto dry priming sugar, and it seems like people do that w/o ruining their beer all the time...

At least, that seemed to be one of the often-repeated "mistakes that turned out great": http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/what-some-mistakes-you-made-where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

This was my concern after realizing I went about it the wrong way!

I'm guessing that, barring and nasty stuff from the lactose, that it will turn out OK. May not have the milky stout character, but hopefully is alright.



Thanks for the input guys!

You could boil it in water to dissolve iit, then cool the mixture and add it. Depending on the temp of the wort it may or may not mix properly, but this would be your best bet.