Milk Stout---Question

sojam said:

I just finished up making a milk stout -with malt extract recipe- and the recipe called for 1lb lactose powder to be added to the brewpot.

Now when I took my initial pre-fermentation gravity reading I got 1.09....

Does this mean I'll have a stout that is very high in alcohol content? Or is the lactose inflating my gravity reading?

Do I have to be worried about my the lid blowing off my fermenter (something I heard is prone to happen with high gravity beers)?

Please help!

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Does this mean I'll have a stout that is very high in alcohol content? Or is the lactose inflating my gravity reading?

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TipsyDragon said:

1 lb. of lactose in 5 gallons of wort will only give you 1.007 of unfermentable sugars. assuming you didn't add to much extract the high reading is probably due to wort stratification. the extract doesn't mix well with the water and sits on the bottom. so when you take a reading from wort at the bottom you get a false high reading. if this is the case then i would just throw out the reading and not bother calculating the ABV. still take SG readings to determine when fermentation is over.

next time cool the wort then whirlpool it like mad then let it sit covered for 10 minutes. this should mix your wort and extract good and give you a more accurate reading.

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sojam said:

Thank you very much for the advice. I'm a rookie so I'll keep that in mind for next time!

The recipe was as follows:

5.5 lbs Munton Medium Malt Extract

0.6 lb Roasted Barley
0.6 lb Chocolate Malt
1.0 lb Extra Dark Crystal Malt

1 lb Lactose
300 ml (roughly 10oz) Molasses

60 grams (roughly 2 oz) Northern Brewer --60 minutes
30 grams (roughly 1 oz) Fuggles -- 30 minutes

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