Lactomel Group Brew Project - 19/20th March 2016

[TandemTails]

I decided I'm going to rack one gallon onto a pound of blackberries.

I'm still not sure if I should use the lactose+fat free milk, if I should just use all skim milk or some combination of that. I need to buy the milk this week so I'll need to figure it out soon.

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

Racked to secondary tonight. Ran it through a cheesecloth to keep all the curds out, then added 1lb of frozen strawberries. Kicked up the lees in the process so it got cloudy again, but it should clear up in a day or so. The mead smelled only faintly of strawberries when i racked it, but thats to be expected.
The curd had an interesting taste to them. Slight honey and strawberry notes but strong on the boozy taste. Was a little on the sharp side in my opinion. Gave the curds to a friend who is going to bake a tart.
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cheese-Curd-Tart <---Recipe she plans to use.

 

[bernardsmith]

Just found a number of very interesting pages on Google when I typed in "whey wines", including a mention of an old Scottish wine made from whey called Blaand. May be of interest to some thinking about this project.

 

[TandemTails]

I got my milk today and ordered some Go-Ferm that should show up on Thursday. I'm going to start my batch on Saturday.

Here's my final plan:

2.5 gallon batch

• 1.5 gallons skim milk
• 1 gallon lactose free skim milk
• 4.5 lbs clover honey
• Lalvin 71b yeast
• Fermaid-K, Fermaid-O and DAP for a small scale SNA

I'll rack one gallon onto 12oz of frozen blackberries in secondary and I'll leave the other alone.

The reason I went with both skim milk and lactose free skim milk is that I wanted some of the lactose to remain in the final product but was also curious how some of the converted lactose in the lactose free milk would behave (will it get consumed by the yeast? not sure)

I've got a 3.5 gallon brewing bucket that I'm going to use for primary so hopefully that'll be big enough to avoid any major blowups.

 

[Arpolis]

Here is a great article that gives some tasting notes on Blaand. from everything I have read this should be a pretty good baseline for what we are shooting for but with that distinct mead twist along with any other adjuncts people are adding.

Tasting notes on a milk wine

 

[Vex3521]

Really interesting article. Looking forward to this weekend and seeing how everyone else does as well as more insight from our folks that did start a little early.

I might be able to get both mine going vs staggering so we'll see!

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I went through the comments just now and it seems like we have a few unexplored options here. You can separate the fats and proteins before you even throw it in the fermenter. This has 2 added benefits, it removes the weird looking curdled stuff before you start and you've just made fresh mozzarella! Secondly you can convert the lactose from the whey in to fermentable sugars using an enzyme. And 3rd you can use Lactobacillus to just do the conversion for you and get a sour Milk Mead! Much to my surprise I found this forum today after researching my own Lactomel project over the last few weeks. I haven't landed on any specific method yet but I'd love to hear thoughts on converting the sugars or using Lactobacillus. Sadly I won't be ready in time to start along with the Brew Project.

 

[Arpolis]

I went through the comments just now and it seems like we have a few unexplored options here. You can separate the fats and proteins before you even throw it in the fermenter. This has 2 added benefits, it removes the weird looking curdled stuff before you start and you've just made fresh mozzarella! Secondly you can convert the lactose from the whey in to fermentable sugars using an enzyme. And 3rd you can use Lactobacillus to just do the conversion for you and get a sour Milk Mead! Much to my surprise I found this forum today after researching my own Lactomel project over the last few weeks. I haven't landed on any specific method yet but I'd love to hear thoughts on converting the sugars or using Lactobacillus. Sadly I won't be ready in time to start along with the Brew Project.

I think everyone would agree that it is ok to start this group brew at any point to add to the general knowledge. Just jump in when you can. In my opinion for a lactomel to still be considered a lactomel is if it still has lactose in it. So I plan on not converting any of the lactose at all. In fact if I feel it needs any back sweetening then I will back sweeten with a little more lactose I think.

I bought all my stuff today. I may get my starter going tomorrow and the following day I am going to make some mozzarella. Following a traditional recipe, just swapping the acid in the recipe for honey since honey is naturally acidic. Then the leftover sweet whey will be used for the lactomel.

 

[bernardsmith]

Started my batch this morning (You gotta sign away half a day to make beer but wine or mead take almost no time - AKA 30 minutes ).
32 oz of Acacia honey dissolved in fat free milk to make a gallon.
added 4 oz of cocoa powder to the mix as I blended it all in batches in my blender. The blender also aerates the must.
The must was too thick for me to consider taking a gravity reading but my refractomer indicated that the milk's gravity was about 1.040 and I estimate the honey diluted with the milk (assuming the milk has virtually no fermentable sugar) would have a gravity of about 1.080 (+/-) or a potential ABV of about 10.5. but my thinking is that the physical density is about 1.120 so the yeast may have problems transporting fluid inside their cell walls...
Yeast is US-05 which I sprinkled on top and after about 10 minutes stirred into the must
My fermenter is a wide mouth 1 gallon jar (to enable me to extract the curds easily) and I have loosely covered with butter muslin cloth - I have no intention of using an airlock that will fill with curds...
My plan is to feed the yeast with nutrient and energizer later today or when I see evidence that they have started to ferment the must

 

[Yeroc]

I may get my starter going tomorrow and the following day I am going to make some mozzarella. Following a traditional recipe, just swapping the acid in the recipe for honey since honey is naturally acidic. Then the leftover sweet whey will be used for the lactomel.

Arpolis, do you think making mozzarella with citric acid would create a whey that's too acidic for making a lactomel? I was leaning toward making my first ever mozzarella to create whey and avoid the curds in the fermenter.

 

[Vex3521]

Arpolis, do you think making mozzarella with citric acid would create a whey that's too acidic for making a lactomel? I was leaning toward making my first ever mozzarella to create whey and avoid the curds in the fermenter.

The article I'd posted had used it and mentioned oaking as you get a chardonnay quality so that balanced it more. I plan on doing my family recipe w citric acid for mozzarella for my whey version, no citric in the milk version

 

[Arpolis]

Arpolis, do you think making mozzarella with citric acid would create a whey that's too acidic for making a lactomel? I was leaning toward making my first ever mozzarella to create whey and avoid the curds in the fermenter.

I agree with Vex. If you want to make the mozzarella with citric acid then that could work. Just may oak the lactomel to help with the balancing. Or make it a fruit Melomel that would compliment with it like lemon or strawberry.

After separating the curd you could add potassium bicarbonate at equal portion to the citric acid as well. That could also tone down the acidity.

 

[Yeroc]

After separating the curd you could add potassium bicarbonate at equal portion to the citric acid as well. That could also tone down the acidity.

Thanks, Vex & Arpolis.

I was thinking about cinnamon and vanilla in my lactomel, but I'm going to get through primary fermentation before deciding. I have frozen backyard peaches and pomegranate seeds waiting to be used for something. So... We'll see.

Balancing the acid with potassium bicarbonate is an interesting idea.

 

[Vex3521]

Kicking my 2 off now, choir invitational has thrown an hiccup into my brew day as they need more parental slaves (er um volunteers) since not enough signed up and I got wrangled. Pictures and brew notes to come hopefully before too long!

 

[TandemTails]

Just started my lactomel

Here's my final ingredient list and procedure:

• 1.5 gallons skim milk
• 1 gallon lactose free skim milk
• 0.5 gallons of water
• 4.5 lbs of clover/wildflower honey
• Lalvin 71b yeast (5g)
• DAP (0.8g)
• Fermaid-K (2.5g)
• Fermaid-O (2.1g)
• GoFerm (6.25g)

I made a starter with 90mL of water, 6.25g of GoFerm and 1 packet of Lalvin 71b yeast. After 20 minutes I added 3 tbs of the must, let that rest for a few minutes and then pitched the yeast. I combined all the nutrients and added half at yeast pitch.

I measured the OG and it came in at 1.076 @ 66'F but I have no idea how reliable that is due to the fats and lactose.

The ingredients:

Yeast starter:

Adding the honey:

Stirring it all together:

Also, a note about using lactose free milk... it has lactase added to it which splits the lactose into galactose and glucose. The galactose is non-fermentable but the yeast should be able to consume the glucose which adds a slight bump in ABV.

 

[Yeroc]

I had the day off work yesterday so I made my first mozzarella in order to have whey to use for the lactomel. The mozzarella was sort of a gummy fail, but I got about 3/4 gallon of whey. I cold crashed the whey overnight.

This afternoon I pour the whey gently from the jug to leave behind the "lees," the leftover solids, and then mixed the whey with 2 pounds of TJ mesquite honey. I might feed the remaining pound of honey to the lactomel later but didn't want too high a starting gravity. My SG was 1.104.

The yeast used is Lalvin D47. I used starter nutrient and slowly acclimated the yeast by adding about 1 cup of the honey/whey mixture to the yeast over the course of 2 hours. Part of the reason i did this so slowly was to let the honey/whey mix warm up since the whey came straight from the refrigerator.

Measured out the staggered nutrient additions: 1.6 grams DAP and 0.8 yeast nutrient, divided by 4 and added the first addition.

Poured the yeast starter into the 2 gallon bucket at 6:30p and had positive pressure in the airlock by 8p... and we're off.

 

[TandemTails]

Just FYI for others... I had 3 gallons of liquid plus 4.5 pounds of honey in a 5.5 gallon bucket and after 48 hours the foam has reached the top of it. I'd definitely recommend using a much larger primary vessel than you think you'll need

 

[Vex3521]

Just FYI for others... I had 3 gallons of liquid plus 4.5 pounds of honey in a 5.5 gallon bucket and after 48 hours the foam has reached the top of it. I'd definitely recommend using a much larger primary vessel than you think you'll need

I second this in and would literally put it in red bold underlined HUGE text to really express the Absolute necessity!!!

My 1.5 gallon, in a 2 gallon pail that has extra headspace past the 2gal marker was the Most VIOLENT Blow off I've Ever Had. It was just under the 1.5 mark so I assumed it'd be good to go stirring it down, guess again. It was the 24hr mark for me (or so) Saturday night when I came home to grab some extra supplies for the invitational I was helping at.

I heard a hissing in the kitchen, checked my whey based to see if it was going again (rigged with blow off) and saw my pail of milk based was the culprit, out the airlock and sides. It was full clear to the top and it's creeping back up and currently residing in the bath tub.

Skimmed off the curd which literally dropped it to 1.25 and I have to check it again this am to see where it's risen to! It's Insane. Getting brew notes together now and will post those with additional pics.

You can see the difference though with the milk version in pail vs whey in carboy.

 

[TandemTails]

Since this thread will probably show up a lot in search results whenever someone searches for a lactomel or milk-mead, I wanted to post some additional stats and see what others are doing about fermentation.

My brew has been sitting on my kitchen counter in a brew bucket wrapped in a towel. The kitchen is pretty steadily around 70'F +/- 3'F through the day and night.

I wouldn't describe the smell as pleasant but it doesn't smell rancid. I guess it's been a while since I've done a normal fermentation without fruit or additions so I forget if the smell is consistent with a mead fermentation or not.

I'm not sure if I should move it to my fermentation closet that sits at 62 or if these temps are fine. Once I rack them to one gallon glass jugs in a few days I'll put them in the colder closet.

 

[Vex3521]

Haven't named them yet... something witty will come to me especially with the milk one.

Whey Based is my chai spiced mead, secondary I'll rack over more spices whole if it needs it and will be oaking this one. 1 gallon at pitch

Used:
3# clover honey
Lalvin 71b-1122
1gm DAP
2.5gm Fermaid K
1gm KHCO3
Whey - fresh 74oz
2c Chai Tea blend - cinnamon stick, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, cardamom pods & black tea
4oz 20L Caramel Malt

I processed my cheese (mozzarella) and reserved all whey I could which totaled out at 114 oz. Curds were a little softer than I prefer but was able to scoop them out and siphon whey from them after they sat in a bowl for a little bit and then also used cheesecloth to strain. I still have 40oz in the fridge for top off. Was able to process out a nice cheese after everything else was said and done so I'm happy with that!

Steeped herbs in 4c boiled water with malt for 30 mins before a 20 min boil and strained out/sparged grain bag. Brewed 2c tea for 5 mins before adding that to carboy. I didn't make a starter, just re-hydrated yeast and pitched it. Gravities were a pain to get on these, especially the whey one with particles sticking and a foam that's just present regardless. Hydrometer says 1.130 however I'm inclined to disagree.

It's been on a pretty steady blow off rate and looks like the curd has finally stopped forming so I think it's safe to remove blow off and go to airlock but since I've lost gravity am going to bring up whey to room temp and top off first. Will see what I do from there with going airlock or leaving it

Milk Based - Coffee & Cocoa 1.5 gallon at pitch
Same as above, however:
used 1 full gallon raw whole milk - since pail is 2gallon
20g unsweetened cocoa powder
4oz 20L Caramel Malt
1oz roasted barley
35g cafe virtuoso espresso

With this one, I did the same 4c water/boil and sparge to grains/cocoa and then cooled them to cold brew my espresso out. Warmed the milk and then added coffee/cocoa 2c and 3# warmed honey. Was just at the 1.5gallon marker when re-hydrated yeast was pitched, had a few stubborn coffee grounds get in but I think with the wicked blowoff we've hit those are out now.

Pics are - Milk w citric acid added, Curds formed after rennet addition, hydrometer attempt, carboy/tube before pitching yeast, milk mead hydrometer attempt, pail pre-pitch, blow-off start on carboy, cheese finished, 12hrs on whey mead/blowoff

 

[Vex3521]

Mine are towel wrapped, one in the bathtub for obvious explosive blow off reasons and the other in the kitchen. Kitchen is about 70 (heat is on we've got frigid temps again) and bathroom is 65 (since it's sitting in an ancient porcelain tub) and that's not slowing anything up there!

Right now depending on the weather they can just chill out in towels in the kitchen. I'm clearing out an old fridge that would have cost more to have hauled off than we'd get scrapping it that came with the house to use to house my carboys. It's sitting about 64, not sure what's wrong with it just that it's older than I am and really not worth fixing so it'll work until we Finally move.

 

[Johan__]

This sounds fun so ill join in!

Pitched yeast 21 Mars

Wild Blueberry Lactomel

1gallon batch
2.43 qt milk organic 3%fat Only heattreated to 72-76 C for 15 seconds.
3,75 pounds wildflowerhoney
1,67 pounds wild blueberry treated in a steam juicer
Wyeast 4632 dry mead
0,0776 ounces Fermaid O spread out in 4 additions (at pitch, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours)
Target abv 18%

Didnt warm the honey much just added the blueberry "juice" and mixed it before adding the milk.

SG >1.200 (Off the scale indicating around 1.300) Musttemp 69.8F

Areated must with 600w mixer.

Starting fermentation in a 6.5gallon bucket since i dont want a mess and the forming foam probebly will protect the must from oxidation anyway.

66,2F Tempcontrol with STC-1000

 

[TandemTails]

This sounds fun so ill join in!

Pitched yeast 21 Mars

Wild Blueberry Lactomel

1gallon batch
2.43 qt milk organic 3%fat Only heattreated to 72-76 C for 15 seconds.
3,75 pounds wildflowerhoney
1,67 pounds wild blueberry treated in a steam juicer
Wyeast 4632 dry mead
0,0776 ounces Fermaid O spread out in 4 additions (at pitch, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours)
Target abv 18%

Didnt warm the honey much just added the blueberry "juice" and mixed it before adding the milk.

SG >1.200 (Off the scale indicating around 1.300) Musttemp 69.8F

Areated must with 600w mixer.

Starting fermentation in a 6.5gallon bucket since i dont want a mess and the forming foam probebly will protect the must from oxidation anyway.

66,2F Tempcontrol with STC-1000

Awesome! Hopefully the blueberry flavor sticks around more than the strawberry did for the other guy

 

[Arpolis]

Sorry for late response. Been trying to get pictures to load but having computer problems. I can seem to only do one at a time with the iPhone:

[

Started batch 3/20/2016.

Started by adding one gallon of whole milk to a large 3 gallon pot. Added 3/4 tsp acid blend and just over 2lb of raw honey plus comb in a straining bag, then heated to 90*F. Removed from heat and added 1/2 a rennet tablet. After 20 min I cut the curd and spooned out a bunch, pressing excess liquid into fermenting bucket pictured. Ran the rest of the whey through cheese cloth to remove solids.

Fermenting bucket is using a paint strainer bag to catch anything I have missed. The cheese I made was too crumbly. I think I only needed 1/4 rennet tablet or I may have needed less acid. Not sure. The honey throws this all off. Cheese still tasted good but with a kick of live hive smell. If you have ever opened up a hive of live bees you know the smell.

At this point I added 3/4 tsp potassium bicarbonate to the whey. SG was only like 1.060. I added honey up to an SG of 1.090. I then added 3 Camden tablets and let the must sit. Started a 13fl oz starter with Lalvin k1v-1116.

18 hours later I pitched the yeast. Things are bubbling nicely. I will transfer to carboy after a couple days and I am sure there is no threat of explosions. At which point I will add 1oz cocoa nibs. Also doing SNA of yeast nutrient and energizer.

 

[Vex3521]

Insanely volatile ferments subsided so racked out to carboy. Lost half a gallon on the milk version with blow off plus serious curds but its looking awesome. Here they are today.

 

[Yeroc]

Insanely volatile ferments subsided so racked out to carboy. Lost half a gallon on the milk version with blow off plus serious curds but its looking awesome. Here they are today.

I bet you're glad to get it out from under that curd krausen.

 

[Vex3521]

I bet you're glad to get it out from under that curd krausen.

And how!!! They are doing really well so hopefully everyone else's are doing great too

 

[Arpolis]

Mine has s very solid and strong ferment going. I bet I did not even need more yeast nutrients in the protein heavy whey but went ahead and added one additional round of nutrients this evening. My brew closet has a strong co2 brewing smell. Very hard to tell if there is any off smells. I will get this out of the bucket and in a jug tomorrow.

 

[bernardsmith]

Arpolis. I don't think that CO2 has any smell. If it did we would smell it when we breathed out.

 

[TandemTails]

After 6 days of primary fermentation I racked one gallon of my lacotmel to a 1 gallon carboy to let it age. I then removed the curds from the brewing bucket and added about 3/4 of a pound each of frozen blackberries and frozen raspberries directly to the bucket. I'll let that ferment for another week or so and then rack to another 1 gallon carboy.

I tried the curds but they were basically flavorless with an odd aftertaste.

Curds:

Lactomel:

Raspberry/Blackberry addition:

 

[Arpolis]

Arpolis. I don't think that CO2 has any smell. If it did we would smell it when we breathed out.

Well I'll be damned. I think you are right. I have described that initial smell as CO2 for forever. I think I read that somewhere and it stuck. But thinking more logically you seem correct. Well what ever the smell is. It is not a bad off smell. I have smelled brews that were not going well or were infected and had off smells. And this is not it. But it is a familiar smell I get with meads doing well. I think I am doing alright. I will post a pic or two later.

 

[bernardsmith]

What you might be smelling is the aroma of ... alcohol, which the CO2 might carry as the gas bubbles up through your airlock. A typical "bad smell" is hydrogen sulfide - and that smells like rotten eggs (very sulfurous) and that is caused by stressed yeast. A worse bad smell smells like struck matches (or rotten cabbage) and that is caused by mercaptans and is the result of very stressed yeast and is much harder to eliminate

 

[Arpolis]

What you might be smelling is the aroma of ... alcohol, which the CO2 might carry as the gas bubbles up through your airlock. A typical "bad smell" is hydrogen sulfide - and that smells like rotten eggs (very sulfurous) and that is caused by stressed yeast. A worse bad smell smells like struck matches (or rotten cabbage) and that is caused by mercaptans and is the result of very stressed yeast and is much harder to eliminate

Yea none of those bad smells. I had an in-law that was bad about being a little too lazy and not very methodical with his mead/wine making and had lots of those cases.

Ok so I have racked into a jug with 1oz cacao nibs. Took a gravity reading and sitting somewhere 1.015 - 1.016. Bubbles made it hard to read for sure but in that range right above 1.014. And fermentation still looks to be going good. I hoped this to end in the 1.010 range because of the lactose but maybe not.

 

[Vex3521]

Looking really good! Eager to hear how the cacao nibs play out.

 

[TandemTails]

I just did a gravity check on the berry infused half of my lactomel and it was 1.013 (OG was 1.076). I also took a quick taste test and while the berry is already coming through nicely after only 2 days, the underlying mead is still extremely hot with what I can only describe as a salty aftertaste. I'm not sure where the saltiness is coming from or if it's just a weird flavor that will fade out over time. The entire mead is only 8 days old so I guess it's too early to really pass any real judgement on it yet

 

[UltraVires]

As a new brewer focusing on mead this thread caught my attention. Who knew milk was a sought after fermentable drink?

Anyway, I was wondering if this experimental group has come to a consensus on how much volume is lost to the curd krausen when using fat free milk. Is it formulaic where you can use a 3 gallon carboy to start primary and rack to a one gallon jug for secondary or is the loss de minimis?

 

[Arpolis]

I used exactly 1 gallon whole milk which should have the heaviest loss to solids and after adding my 13 oz starter, honey and a small amount of water to clean out honey bucket I still had over a gallon after primary fermentation was over and curd removed. Not bad at all.

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

I lost less than 1/5th of my volume. Noticable but not end of the world levels.

 

[Johan__]

I racked from bucket to carboy. Fermentation have slowed. How are things going with your mead?

View attachment 1459690258664.jpg

 

[Arpolis]

Mine still bubbling away. Try to degas it daily. When will it stop!