bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
As has been mentioned in other posts in the past blaand (think "blonde" rather than "bland") was an indigenous Scottish and Norse drink that made use of leftover whey from cheese making. Blaand was not made commercially and fell out of favor in the early part of the 20th Century when cheese making shifted from the home to commercial/industrial dairies. There was one cheese maker (Errington) who began to make blaand commercially but by all accounts they no longer do so perhaps because the market for this drink is not "there" but since I make a small batch of cheese almost every week and since I generally compost my whey I thought that I might give blaand a go and so on Sunday evening after starting a batch of blue cheese I took the whey that was leftover - about 7 pints from a gallon of whole milk - and so had bacterial and yeast cultures in it that would reduce the lactose to lactic acid - and I added about 2 lbs of honey (1 lb of bamboo and 1 lb of orange blossom), nutrients, and 71B yeast. The whey wine is fermenting very actively and my plan is to add some mango pulp to the secondary once fermentation has come close to the end.
A couple of years ago there was a lactomel group on this forum that for the most part used milk as their liquid - and so they experienced the benefits and problems with the fermentation resulting in thick curds forming over flowing from their primaries and taking with it about 1/3 of the volume of their must. Using whey rather than milk as my liquid all the curds, for all intents and purposes, have been removed.
By all accounts the flavor of blaand is similar to a gose (some acidity, some saltiness).. Mine should end at about 9% ABV. If this ends well perhaps a next batch will be a whey braggot and the one after that a whey braggot with caramelized honey (bochet)...
A couple of years ago there was a lactomel group on this forum that for the most part used milk as their liquid - and so they experienced the benefits and problems with the fermentation resulting in thick curds forming over flowing from their primaries and taking with it about 1/3 of the volume of their must. Using whey rather than milk as my liquid all the curds, for all intents and purposes, have been removed.
By all accounts the flavor of blaand is similar to a gose (some acidity, some saltiness).. Mine should end at about 9% ABV. If this ends well perhaps a next batch will be a whey braggot and the one after that a whey braggot with caramelized honey (bochet)...
