Is Beersmith lactose intolerant?

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BlueHouseBrewhaus

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I have been using Beersmith for over 2 years now and have everything pretty well dialed in. I'm almost always within a point or two with the predicted OG and FG. However, every brew I've done with lactose has ended up 3 to 4 points high on my FG over the predicted FG. I check the box for unfermentable and the predicted FG bumps up a little. But when I brew it, the actual FG is always even higher.

It's not that big a deal and it is so repeatable that I could just reduce my lactose accordingly to hit my target FG. I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this or do I have some setting wrong.
 
I haven't actually noticed this myself. I'm likely to be brewing a few Chocolate Milk Stouts in the fall and will pay attention to that.

I'm wondering if you can adjust the fermentability of lactose yourself in the software. Have you looked into that?
 
The default (as far as I know it's the default as I havn't changed it) setting in Beersmith gives a 5% fermentability to lactose. Perhaps by ticking the box "not fermentable" Beersmith is reducing that to 0% fermentable.

Just a thought. I've never used lactose so wouldn't want to steer you wrong.
 
From using a number of online tools, Ive found a lot of them arent accurate with lactose. Some get the gravity points added correct, but they treat it almost like cane sugar. FWIW, ive found for a 5gal batch 1lb of lactose will add 0.008 to your OG and FG
 
From BS2:

Yield: 76.10 %

Potential: 1.035

Not sure how that calculates out. I think that Milk Sugar tends to keep the gravity up more than BS calculates, yet tastes less sweet than cane sugar. I've never paid that close attention. I assumed BS would have the correct information as far as fermentability.
 
In Edit Grain Details there is a box to check for "Not Fermentable". I assume that enters it as 0% fermentable. When I check that box, the predicted FG goes up ta a rate of .008 points per pound of lactose.

So, my mocha stout had 12 oz of lactose. Predicted OG was 1058 and FG would be 1013 without the "Not Fermentable" box checked and 1019 with the box checked. When I brewed it, I got actual OG 1057 and FG 1022.

As I said, I'm almost always within a point with OG and FG and yet I am always 3 or 4 pints high when I use lactose. Again, it's not that big a deal but it is curious.
 
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