Milk-Mead (a spin on koumiss) instruction, recipe & info

[DarkBrood]

Oh, this sounds so deliciously twisted that I have to give it a try! I'd try it for the bizarre mead alone, but this cheese curd sounds verrry interesting (I'm a chef and baker, so new ingredients are fascinating). Once the milkmead is siphoned to secondary and the curds have been separated out, can the remaining yeast cake be reused (perhaps after washing) for the next batch, or is there too much nastiness in the trub?

 

[chaka99]

hey all, I had ago at this yesterday, iv done a 2gal batch with 4LB of honey. I gave it a mix this morning had a taste wow tastes awesome already.

 

[bernardsmith]

I made a gallon of koumiss (I think the origins are really only a few hundred years rather than thousands and I wonder if the word khoumiss is a corruption of the Hebrew word "hametz" which means "leavened" ) but I added enough sucrose and fructose to increase the gravity to close to 1.080 and it tastes much more pleasant than you might think. The idea of making a mead with lactose free milk is really quite a fascinating idea. But I guess my question is why would I want to add water to dilute the honey if I can dilute it with the milk?

 

[chaka99]

I made a gallon of koumiss (I think the origins are really only a few hundred years rather than thousands and I wonder if the word khoumiss is a corruption of the Hebrew word "hametz" which means "leavened" ) but I added enough sucrose and fructose to increase the gravity to close to 1.080 and it tastes much more pleasant than you might think. The idea of making a mead with lactose free milk is really quite a fascinating idea. But I guess my question is why would I want to add water to dilute the honey if I can dilute it with the milk?

I was thinking this when I was making it but I just carried on next time though I think I will try with just milk and honey

 

[bernardsmith]

Oh, this sounds so deliciously twisted that I have to give it a try! I'd try it for the bizarre mead alone, but this cheese curd sounds verrry interesting (I'm a chef and baker, so new ingredients are fascinating). /QUOTE]

The curds when you first remove them and they are wet and dripping with the alcohol infusion are quite incredible - sweet and tart at the same time. I wonder if they might make a great cheese cake? But after I allowed the curds to dry (I never added any salt or anything ) I did not like them nearly as much. They lost that sweetness.

 

[Arpolis]

Oh, this sounds so deliciously twisted that I have to give it a try! I'd try it for the bizarre mead alone, but this cheese curd sounds verrry interesting (I'm a chef and baker, so new ingredients are fascinating). /QUOTE]

The curds when you first remove them and they are wet and dripping with the alcohol infusion are quite incredible - sweet and tart at the same time. I wonder if they might make a great cheese cake? But after I allowed the curds to dry (I never added any salt or anything ) I did not like them nearly as much. They lost that sweetness.

I really want to do this and try and make a cheddar like cheese from this. Probably separate the curd and the add it back to a little water and add renet and cook it like you would with hard cheeses. Then strain and press it. I think it would work out nicely.

 

[Magnushate]

I am totally going to try this after my apples and oranges and strawberry melomel get out of my fermenters. Anyone try throwing some fruit in the secondary yet? I was thinking blackberries would be a good mix with this.

 

[DaWhip]

Hey guys, I've been lurking on this forum for about a year, but finally joined to get in on this thread I uncovered the other night and hope it can be resurrected a bit. I have a milk goat and milk cow, so I have been really wanting to come up with something new to do with all the milk stacking in the fridge.

I didn't see any results in the thread for anyone that pulled the curds off before pitching. Anyone have anything to report there?

If it went well pitching after pulling curds, then it seems to me like this would basically be fermenting cheese whey & honey, so I could just save the whey when we make cheese, though I would like to try those curds of the top of the must sometime.

I'm going to give this a go in a small batch with some skimmed milked and lactase next week. I have plenty of homebrew & some mead experience, but any advice specific to this recipe would be appreciated. If we make some cheese this week, I'll try to match the recipe and just use whey instead of milk and compare results.

 

[bernardsmith]

Never tried this using whey but I cannot see why that would necessarily create problems except that perhaps when you begin with whey the pH is lower than when you begin with milk and you may have converted some of the lactic sugars to lactic acid before you let the yeast have their way with the whey. Not sure whether the taste of the koumis (or variants) grows on you or whether the taste improves as the mead /wine ages but I cracked open a bottle I had made earlier this year and it is interestingly drinkable... (my version included honey and cocoa and chocolate nibs)

 

[Chris_The_Rogue]

Look for the lactomel group brew thread. It is a more recent thread and one person did use whey.

 

[TandemTails]

I wouldn't recommend doing this. I brewed 2 gallons of lactomel during the group brew and it might be the only batch of mead I actually dump down the drain.

One batch sat on mixed berries for a few weeks and the other was left alone. Both have a pretty strong aroma that i definitely wouldn't call pleasant. The taste is slightly better but still has a salinity and sour flavor that is offputting. They've been in glass carboys for 7 months now and I still don't think they're improving.

I was debating throwing a bunch more fruit on them or blending but i really don't like the mead as it is and I'm not sure if it's worth wasting more time/money trying to save it when it might not be possible.

It was a fun experiment fermenting milk but it's not something i'll ever do again.