Has anyone used dulce de leche in a beer?

My wife is from Argentina and I am in love with dulce de leche. I want to use it in a recipe and was just wondering if anyone out there has used it before and what flavors it imparted in the beer. How much did you use and how did it taste?

I have read about the use of mate in beer and considered using both with Argentine Cascade hops. To make a Tango Ale or something.

Gracias!

I haven't used it, but I suspect it would ferment out like if you used both Belgian Candi and Lactose.

My only concern would be that the milk might hinder head retention. I don't know how much milk "character" it retains. If you can find the hard candy version it might do better than the syrup version.

It's probably very rich in lactose, if the bonds don't all get broken when making it, which would result in a relatively sweet brew. Not sure if lactose breaks down during production, though, or whether yeast can consume galactose...

I looked around a bit because I haven't heard of galactose and I was curious.

It looks like it is fermentable but not very well.

From what I read, it looks like it will ferment as long as glucose is also being fermented, but it will go more slowly. So when the glucose fermentation stops, there will be unconverted galacose left.

In other words, it will finish with a high FG and be sweet. My recommendation would be to try it in a sweet stout.

Thanks guys!

I will put together a stout recipe and let you know how it worked out.

Please report back on how it turns out - I would be very interested - my wife is from Chile and also loves Dulce de Leche...

Suerte.

Hehehe... My wife is Puerto Rican. But I'm the dulce de leche and flan freak.

I'm interested in how it goes too. I might adjust my milk stout if it goes well.

My only advice on formulating a recipe is keep the dulce de leche under 8oz for your first attempt. That's the max amount of lactose I put in my milk stout. I don't know if you'll end up with more or less residual sweetness than straight lactose, but I suspect it will be more.

Any update on this? How did it go?

My girlfriend is from Argentina and making a beer with dulce de leche would help my brewing addiction to no end.

Have not tried it yet. Just switched over to all-grain and I am still trying to figure out my system. The recipe is written but I just have not gotten around to it yet. I will keep you updated when it happens. Cheers!

This is a great idea. Would make a nice replacement for lactose in a sweet stout.

search for "DOLCE" USDA SR21 (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/) to get sugar composistion. 49% sugar of which 41.7% is sucrose, 1.7% Dextrose , 4.9% Lactose. It is also 7.3% Fat

salzar said:

search for "DOLCE" USDA SR21 (http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/) to get sugar composistion. 49% sugar of which 41.7% is sucrose, 1.7% Dextrose , 4.9% Lactose. It is also 7.3% Fat

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The fat would be an issue for the beer. No head, and it would give it a really unappetizing mouthfeel.

However, I bet you could make your own Dulce de Leche from Fat-Free Milk and solve that issue.

You could probably also just caramelize lactose for a similar effect.

if your using any milk product remember that milk is basic and beer is acidic. mix the two and it will curdle. i put evaporated milk in my creme brulee stout and it curdled, but then the curdled mess flocculated so it was salvagable. just a thought...

It is a milk product, I may be wrong but is the milk caramelized along with the sugar. Would the hour long high heating and the chemical reactions that take place alter the pH of the product when the dulce de leche is made? Any suggestions on how I could test this? Lemon juice and dulce de leche? Vinegar?

My folks are from Argentina. Here's how my mom makes Dulce de Leche:

- Take a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk. Throw the can in a pot of boiling water for 3 hours (you'll need to keep adding water to the boiling pot).

- Let it cool. Open the can and try to not eat the whole thing in one sitting.

curious to see if anyone made this beer. I am planning on making a dulce de leche beer here soon... any advice?

I have the recipe written and I just keeping putting it off because of the levels of fat in the dulce de leche. It just makes me nervous. I will make this my next beer and let you know. Chau!

Hey Guys! This is my first post on the forum. I usually lurk, but figured I'd speak up for this niche topic. I'm new to homebrewing (six 5 gal bottlings so far), so take it with a grain of salt.
I' m currently midway through second fermentation on my second cider. I wanted to infuse a caramel flavor into it and tried a couple attempts. I started with 4 Gal of UV filtered non-preservative cold pressed cider with 16 oz of a product called 'boiled cider' (essentially apple maple syrup - find it on amazon). To this add 1.5 tablespoon pectin enzyme a double pitch of champagne yeast. In the first week it dropped from SG 1.058 to 1.020. At this point it was going into dormancy at 55 deg F and running through its initial fermentable carbos. Time for the caramel. First I tried making a full fat Dulce De Leche then 'fat washing' it with everclear, there was no seperation so I ended up with some highly alcoholic ice cream topping (lemonade out of lemons ehh). So I went and bought a can of fat free condensed milk, boiled it for 4 hours just like the prior, cut 50/50 with hot water to easy integration into the hard cider. Poured and fermentation quickly picked up. I'm three days after the introduction of the Dulce, the carboy is bubbling every 4 seconds or so. I haven't noticed any floating 'skum' which would indicate fats or curdling, so it's well incorporated. I taste tested and thought we're on the right past but it's too weak as far as flavor and alcohol. I think I'm going to add one additional can of fat free Dulce and perhaps additional boiled cider. It's a lot of lactose from my understanding, but I kinda like the idea of residual lactose which doesn't ferment to have carry over sweetness (assuming this doesn't start bursting bottles a couple months after capping). I'll keep this thread appraised if anyone is interested. Thanks for all the initial dialogue that got me here. Cheers!
Blaise

Any updates on either the sweet stout or the cider?

I never got around to trying it.

When racking after primary fermentation, I did a taste test and thought there wasn't any noticeable caramel flavor. So I bought another two 8 oz cans of fat free condensed milk, boiled them for 6 hours, mixed into one to one parts boiling water, brought to room temp, then added to carboy. Primary was reinvigorated for maybe a day. After another week I racked and tasted. Still lacking the 'caramel apple' profile I was wanting. I've since decided to take the cider in a new direction. It's nearing applewine now with a 10% abv and is crystal clear with a nice red hue. I've been soaking american oak cubes in Lagavulin 16yr. These will go into the carboy for another two weeks of so to integrate a smokey woody taste, I hope the remnants of the dulce profile will compliment these more assertive flavors.

I think the issue has been fully integrating the dulche. Both times despite diluting to similar fluid consistencies and vigorous shaking of the carboy, the dulce seems to find a way to settle to the bottom. When I attempt again in the future, I'll add the dulche at the end of the wort boil.

Makes me go back to thinking the best way to do this is with a caramel sauce made from table sugar and lactose.

So did anyone heer brew this? I just read about a recipe in Mastering Homebrewing by Mosher that includes dulce de leche. I live in Chile and we love our manjar here (just another way to say it)