Lactose substitution

I have a recipe that asks for lactose, but since I'm lactose intolerant I'd prefer to leave it out. What sort of effect does it add to the beer, and is there a substitution I can add? They're asking for 1 lb of the stuff, so I'm assuming it must have a pretty strong effect on the final product.

 

I don't know what to sub it with but the Lactose also imparts a creamy texture.

 

Caramelized sugar syrup, perhaps?

Yeasties can't metabolize the stuff, right?

 

You can make (and I have made) candi sugar/syrup from sucrose (aka table sugar) without going up to the 320F required for caramelization.

However, I was wrong about yeast being unable to metabolize caramelized sugar, as caramelized sucrose has been broken down into fructose and glucose, both of which are easily metabolized by yeasties.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/milk-stout-lactose-lactose-intolerance-98855/ suggests using Splenda (aka Sucralose).

 

Lactose is about 20% as sweet as sucrose, maltodextrin runs 10-25% depending on its DE rating, so you could use the same amount of MD and be in the ballpark. MD is also good for increasing body.

DE = dextrose equivalents, a quantitative measure of the degree of starch polymer hydrolysis. A DE of 15 is as sweet as lactose.

 

You'd have to adjust to taste but you could use any artificial sweetener, splenda comes to mind as one that would work well, just don't use a lot of it. I'd probably do maltodextrin along with some splenda to up the sweetness some, you can add those at any time so you could do so at bottling and adjust to your taste before adding the priming sugar.

 

I'd go with david_42's suggestion of using malto-dextrin. Laxtose isn't just about sweetness, it helps to create a fuller and almost sticky body to the beer. Just using a substitute sweetener would not help with that mouth feel.

 

Something that has not been mentioned yet is the viscosity that lactose vs maltodextrin creates. I don't have the exact resources in front of me right now, but I believe maltodextrin creates quite a bit more viscosity than lactose per weight %. This is definitely something you want to consider and not just add an equal amount of MD.

In the end, I think you will be able to get by with a certain percentage of maltodextrin and tiny amount of aspartame or something of that sort.

I can look into it some more if you are truly interested or ask my additives professor wednesday.

 

I used lactose once and I hated it. I would never use it again or use it sparingly. I'd rather mash higher and use a less attenuating yeast to get the sweetness in. THat stuff is just nasty.