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": https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

sweetcell said:

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!

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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.

Nightshade said:

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.

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It's already in his secondary. I wouldn't boil my secondary.


But, if you don't think it mixed up properly, you could always grab more lactose, boil that up, and the add to your secondary. Maybe not the whole amount you were going to use.

mike_in_ak said:

It's already in his secondary. I wouldn't boil my secondary.


But, if you don't think it mixed up properly, you could always grab more lactose, boil that up, and the add to your secondary. Maybe not the whole amount you were going to use.

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I meant boil the lactose in a small amount of water to liquify it, not boil the beer.

Nightshade said:

I meant boil the lactose in a small amount of water to liquify it, not boil the beer.

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The lactose is already IN the beer.

As others have said- only thing to do now is wait it out. You're probably fine. In the future, you can just toss it right into the boil since it's not fermentable. That sanitizes it and dissolves it all at once!

TheMagicHatter said:

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.

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I remember reading that breweries used to add the lactose as priming to the cask. Doing it that way allowed them to use the same base beer for their other stouts. Boiling it first probably would have been safer but if the beer is close to terminal gravity, its probably ok.

Yeast can't eat lactose.

feinbera said:

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": https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

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Very different. Yeast love priming sugar and don't utilize lactose at all.

mike_in_ak said:

But, if you don't think it mixed up properly, you could always grab more lactose, boil that up, and the add to your secondary. Maybe not the whole amount you were going to use.

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i wouldn't add any more lactose. there is no way of knowing how little or how much the lactose was mixed, so adding more runs the risk of making his beer too sweet. better to go low than high when it comes to lactose, IMO.

swriling the bucket a few times should help with lactose distribution.

Yeah, you right.

And honestly how many times has a stout been ruined by having too little lactose? (never)

My one and so far only brew epic fail was a milk stout, think it was infected... Waited in bottle for over a year, still nasty... So sad... I need a tissue, sniff sniff sob sob...
Good luck to you man!!!

mike_in_ak said:

And honestly how many times has a stout been ruined by having too little lactose? (never)

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exactly!

The only real advantage to pouring in the boil is to sanitize the lactose and ensure it dissolves fully into the wort. I wouldn't worry.

dannylerch said:

The only real advantage to pouring in the boil is to sanitize the lactose

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well, that's a pretty important advantage, and precisely the one the OP is concerned about!

And to make sure it dissolves.

But only those two things

I'm sure it will be fine. With time, the alcohol should kill off any bacteria from the lactose. Bottle it, wait a few weeks and report back.

dannylerch said:

I'm sure it will be fine. With time, the alcohol should kill off any bacteria from the lactose. Bottle it, wait a few weeks and report back.

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It's good to know that a beer can't go bad because alcohol kills off any bacteria.

If memory serves it kills off MOST bacteria, and all the ones that are harmful to us..

Just not the ones that like to spoil beer.. spoiled Beer is still beer, just a bit more sour than regular beer.

OH and as for the Lactobacillus.. its used to make yogurt, etc.. and is a beneficial bacteria MOST the time.. Just not when it is trying to make Yogurt out of your Beer.

That said, its good for you.. (Its whats in the Highly advertised Activia Yogurt). Its even been proven to have anti-cancer and other nice benefits.

That said, Lactobacillus infected beer can still be drinkable.

CDGoin said:

If memory serves it kills off MOST bacteria, and all the ones that are harmful to us..

Just not the ones that like to spoil beer.. spoiled Beer is still beer, just a bit more sour than regular beer.

OH and as for the Lactobacillus.. its used to make yogurt, etc.. and is a beneficial bacteria MOST the time.. Just not when it is trying to make Yogurt out of your Beer.

That said, its good for you.. (Its whats in the Highly advertised Activia Yogurt). Its even been proven to have anti-cancer and other nice benefits.

That said, Lactobacillus infected beer can still be drinkable.

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Different strain. There is a brewery in Cleveland that advertises open fermentation. Stuff gets pretty undrinkable. He has a wild lacto infection he couldn't get rid of. Not sure if that is still the case but I won't/don't drink his beer.

Hermit said:

Different strain. There is a brewery in Cleveland that advertises open fermentation. Stuff gets pretty undrinkable. He has a wild lacto infection he couldn't get rid of. Not sure if that is still the case but I won't/don't drink his beer.

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Sour-ish beers are an acquired taste. I for one really enjoy that lactic twang that I get from indigo imp's beers. I wouldn't say that they make amazing beers or are super consistent, but I always enjoy drinking their beers. The blonde especially works well with the sour note.

I wouldn't worry about it. If the lactose was packaged in a plastic bag there wouldn't be enough moisture to support any bacteria inside the bag. I am sure it was sitting around for a while also, so I highly doubt that there is any viable beer spoiling organisms attached to the lactose powder. I wouldn't worry about it. Finish it out and keep it cold when packaged and you should be fine.

adding lactose at bottling/kegging time is ideal to decide on how much sweetness you want to add, you can take a very small sample and add some, then if you like it you can multiple it out to the whole batch.. i was going to do that to my choc stout i have kegged now but SWMBO vetoed the use of lactose.. so i can't call it a "Milk Choc Stout" anymore :-( sigh..

Alright, so finally an update after bottling and conditioning for a few weeks.

The stout is awesome! It didn't come out as thick and milky as expected, but enough of the lactose dissolved to give it enough of a mouth feel of a milk stout.

Throughout the time in secondary, I would regularly rock, shake, and spin the carboy in hopes of getting as much lactose to dissolve as possible. There was still a good bit of it left over when I bottled, but it still turned out better than expected.

I'm planning on brewing it again, but maybe going with a bit more Crystal 120 to give it even more of a dark, roasty, flavor.


Thanks for your input everyone!

I'm planning on brewing it again, but maybe going with a bit more Crystal 120 to give it even more of a dark, roasty, flavor.

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c-120 will give you more of a burnt caramel flavor than a roasty flavor. What was your percentage of roasted malt in this recipe? A good milk stout should be around 10% roasted malts.

black roasted barley @ 3-4% works nicely with a stout

MachineShopBrewing said:

c-120 will give you more of a burnt caramel flavor than a roasty flavor. What was your percentage of roasted malt in this recipe? A good milk stout should be around 10% roasted malts.

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This is the extract recipe I used.

12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 1 8.8 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.8 %
6 lbs Dark Liquid Extract (17.5 SRM) Extract 3 70.6 %
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4 11.8 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 28.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg Scottish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1728) [124.21 ml] Yeast 6 -

This is the extract recipe I used.

12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 1 8.8 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.8 %
6 lbs Dark Liquid Extract (17.5 SRM) Extract 3 70.6 %
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4 11.8 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 28.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg Scottish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1728) [124.21 ml] Yeast 6 -

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Looks like you may need some more roast barley or black patent to make it more roasty and coffee like. Do you know what is all in the dark LME? I would start there and then build in the remaining roasted malts into the steeping grains. I can help you with that if you wish.

I did something similar. I started with 8oz into the boil but when i racked it to the secondary, it wasnt sweet enough. I added another 8oz into the secondary but i did add it into a "wort" of boiled water and lactose, cooled then added to the secondary. Came out great.

Sit and wait. Good luck.

so how did it turn out? Or how is it turning out?

Lactose scares the **** outta me... I've had 2 beers get ruined by lactose infections, and that was WITH boiling it in the wort for the last 10-15 minutes...

I take my sanitation to Monk-like levels of dedication when working with lactose, and frankly I avoid using it if I can.

ViperMan said:

Lactose scares the **** outta me... I've had 2 beers get ruined by lactose infections, and that was WITH boiling it in the wort for the last 10-15 minutes...

I take my sanitation to Monk-like levels of dedication when working with lactose, and frankly I avoid using it if I can.

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that doesn't make sense. if you boiled it for 10+ minutes, there is no way it could have caused an infection. that stuff was deader than moon dust.

did you mean a lacto (lactobacillus) infection? that has nothing to do with lactose.