Making Lactose from Milk

[71westbrewing]

So, after watching Brew Dogs, and growing up on a diary farm, I'm stuck on the thought of making Lactose from milk.

I've spent all morning searching, and everything I've found has been on using Lactose in beer, and not how to make it. Has anyone done this? How difficult or dangerous is it?

After rewatching the Brew Dogs episode, it looks like its pretty easy, and not super dangerous (although played up to be like Breaking Bad)


From what I watched, the way to make Lactose is :

1) Heat Milk to 40 deg Celsius
2) 6 mLs of 10% Acetic Acid 10%
3) Stir
4) Filter to remove Casein and collect liquid filtrate
5) Push moisture out
6) Heat liquid to almost boil
7) 2 ½ grams of powder calcium carbonate to precipitate the rest of the unwanted proteins
8) 50 mLs of grain ethanol 190 proof
9) Heat til 70 degrees Celsius
10) Filter and wait for crystals to form


Just looking to see if this is a stupid idea, or if it can be done.

*sorry if this is the wrong forum.

 

[suregork]

No experience myself, but this was the first result on Google (steps are very similar to what you've posted above):

https://infohost.nmt.edu/~jaltig/Lactose.pdf

 

[biertourist]

Ew!

 

[Roadie]

Too much work when lactose is cheap. If SWMBO knew I had that much ambition my honey-do list would never be finished!

 

[71westbrewing]

I know its not cost effective, but neither is most of the stuff I do for brewing. I want to get some ideas from people that have tried it.

 

[bdh]

If you want feedback from people who've tried similar things you might try asking over in the cheese making forum. This seems to essentially be cheese making with a final step of adding ethanol to the whey to purify the lactose. I don't see a reason for this to be unsafe if you use all food grade ingredients and you don't catch the 190 proof ethanol on fire, but I'm not a chemist.