Lactomel Group Brew Project - 19/20th March 2016

[TandemTails]

Confirmed: looks like brains, haha.

Wow, that's a pretty violent fermentation though. Maybe i'll have to use my 6 gallon bucket for a 2 gallon batch

 

[Vex3521]

Wow now That's what I call a blow off! Hope the clean up wasn't too awful or stinky. I think I've changed my position and will run primary in my pail just to be safe.

Looking really good so far though.

 

[bernardsmith]

That picture is really valuable - It suggests that a bucket and not a carboy is what is needed as your primary.
And my question to Chris the Rogue... what was the reason for boiling the honey? You are using filtered honey so there is no wax to skim off.. and heat only blows off aromatics and flavors...

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

Only one cup of the honey was heated up. I was making the strawberry milk syrup from the recipe i linked.

 

[Yeroc]

Blow off tubes are a must!

OK now that the mess is cleaned up. The curds have separated out within 6 hours of pitching the starter. When it happened it happened quick. I highly recommend using a blow-off tube or a massive amount of head space for this.

That curd krausen is crazy looking. How much liquid volume do you think you've lost?

 

[Vex3521]

It does look like a lot. I think I'm probably going to play it safe and start with more volume by at least 1/4-1/2 over so topping off later won't be an issue. I'd rather have extra in this case.

Wondering if the whey variety I am doing will be as violent as regular milk was. I guess we'll see when it kicks off. Looking forward to posting pics of process and that my cheese skills aren't too rusty!!

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

That curd krausen is crazy looking. How much liquid volume do you think you've lost?

Id guess a little under 1/4? Maybe 1/5th? It gives me plenty of room at add the frozen strawberries for secondary.

 

[TandemTails]

What adjuncts (if any) are you guys planning on adding to secondary? I'm going to start with 2.5 gallons of milk so I can hopefully end up with two one gallon jugs full. I'm planning on leaving one gallon alone and then I want to add some flavorings to the second gallon.

My initial thought was citrus (orange and lemon slices) but the more I think about it I'm leaning toward cocoa nibs and a vanilla bean.

 

[Vex3521]

I had a bunch of ideas running. If I end up doing both brews, one is cold pressed coffee with cocoa trying to give it a latte angle for my whey brew and for the milk one I'm going masala chai. I was originally going to do both chai but decided to do 2 different ones to really push some limits.

 

[Arpolis]

Ok I am back from vacation. If I can peel away from the house to go to the LHBS tomorrow then I will start tomorrow evening or the next when my wife goes to work. Still planning on racking honey/whey must into cocoa nibs after sifting out the curd. I will take lots of pics.

 

[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