Lactomel Question

[cgenebrewer]

Hey guys, I am going to be starting a milk mead and was wondering about how much lactase enzyme to add for the one gallon batch. I cannot find any information about how much to use anywhere online. I know the most popular recipe calls for Lactaid milk, which already has the lactose broken down, but I have a lot of the lactose intolerant pills and regular milk is about half the price.

If anyone has any other tips they want to share that would be great too!

 

[raymondim]

This is really interesting. Where did you find this recipe and what does it taste like?

 

[cgenebrewer]

http://wyobrewing.blogspot.com/2011/11/milk-wine.html

This is one recipe I found. It calls for sugar instead of honey, but there is a recipe floating around here that uses honey.

 

[cgenebrewer]

In case anyone was wondering, I continued doing research and found an article suggesting two lactase enzyme pills per gallon of milk, for 24 hours. So I,m off to the store for some milk to get this brew going.

 

[Deadroachdancing]

I'm interested in how this is going =]

 

[bernardsmith]

Curious about the effects of the milk fat on the fermentation process. Do you use fat free milk or skimmed milk or does the fat content not have any impact? Also the recipe you cite suggests that you dilute the milk. Wouldn't that dilute the flavor?

 

[Arpolis]

I think this is interesting. When the curd separates and is strained I wonder if you could warm it to 90*F, add some rennet, mesophilic culture and some salt and go through the cheese making process. Hmmmm lactomel cheese? Might be great or terrible.

 

[Torche72]

Any updates?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Torches and welcome.
Why would there be any need to remove the lactose? The fermentation process will transform the lactose to lactic acid much like bacterial cultures do in cheese-making. I have made lactomel (milk mead) and kumis (wine from milk) several times and have never had any problem with the fermentation. Never used any enzymes. But that said, kumis and lactomel are ... um.. acquired tastes and the wines may take a year or more to begin to come into their own.. I enjoy them, but one glass at a time is quite enough and it is not something that I offer acquaintances, if you get my drift... Adding chocolate or cocoa to the secondary does bring them up a couple of notches, though. Oh, and the curds these produce are INCREDIBLE. Not tried to make cheese from them but they are very sweet perhaps because they trap some of the unfermented sugars. De-licious.