Lactose

[LittleBig2014]

Doing a firkin this week and was intrigued on using lactose along with my sugar additive. Has anyone done this? If, so how much would you use.

Express Porter- base
Cocoa Nibs
Bourbon Vanilla beans

 

[Yooper]

Doing a firkin this week and was intrigued on using lactose along with my sugar additive. Has anyone done this? If, so how much would you use.

Express Porter- base
Cocoa Nibs
Bourbon Vanilla beans

Well, I hate lactose generally but some people like sweet stouts and they generally use about a pound per 5 gallons for a creamy "milk stout" sweetness and fullness.

If you taste the beer and it need some sweetness and body, the lactose would be a good addition. I don't have a sweet tooth, so I wouldn't care for it but I'm definitely in the minority on that!

 

[LittleBig2014]

Thanks, wouldn't you think 2 pounds would be an awful much in a firkin haha.
Mite just not use it.

 

[enokidaki]

So is it acceptable to add this lactose on the secondary?

 

[CJ-3]

So is it acceptable to add this lactose on the secondary?

Lactose is unfermentable (not fermentable?, not sure if that is the proper use of the word )

Anyway....
Yeast won't ferment it out. You can pretty much add it whenever you like. I personally prefer to add mine at bottling time. That way I can taste a sample and get a feel for how much I want to add.

Then it's just a matter of mixing it with the priming sugar.

 

[enokidaki]

Now legend has it that it may be a wee bit fermentable. Which will be fine because mine will be with some priming sugar as well.