Brewing with Lactose

[biohaz7331]

So I am looking to brew a milk stout and use lactose to add to the sweetness of the beer. My question is does putting lactose in the beer leave any lactose in the beer, or does it only add to the sweetness? The reason for my concern is I am lactose intolerant and don't want to have to take medicine every time I have a beer. Thanks!

 

[peterj]

Yes, if you put lactose in the beer it will have lactose in it. I guess you're asking if it will ferment out, right? It will not. The sweetness is because the yeast is not able to ferment the lactose (basically milk sugar) that you add. I'm not sure how much you would get per beer, but if you're lactose intolerant I wouldn't make a beer with lactose in it. You could probably use something like maltodextrin powder. That is also unfermentable, but I'm not sure how the taste would compare with lactose.

 

[biohaz7331]

Ok thanks for the info I guess I will stay away from lactose for now so as to not have any problems. It would seem maltodextrin could be used but I don't know how it would turn out and would rather not produce 5 gallons of something either undrinkable or just not that good. Thanks alot!

 

[peterj]

No problem! You could experiment with it by adding a scaled down amount to a glass of stout. Just use a non milk stout like Guinness or really any stout that is not already a milk stout. Then add a measured amount of maltodextrin to the glass and scale it up to 5 gallons if you like it.

 

[Setesh]

I brewed this one:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/left-hand-milk-stout-clone-139820/
and I couldn't have even one without getting very gassy and crampy. I ended up giving it all away. I'm very lactose intolerant though. I also brewed BM's Black Pearl Porter which has only 4oz of lactose in it. As long as I only had one I was fine with that amount. If I had several I would have problems though. The last couple of times I've made his porter I just mashed a bit higher and left out the lactose, but I'm not sure what the impact is. I'm not consistent enough to produce the exact same beer every time to be able to tell.

I know this doesn't have anything to do with your milk stout, but I've been studying funky beer making lately and apparently Brett is more than happy to eat lactose and even maltodextrin, both of which Sac can't eat. Thought that was pretty cool.