Session Mead - inspiration and recipe for an Unoriginal Clone

[bernardsmith]

I tasted my first bottle of this today. I added the acids and since I wanted to bottle condition I added a bit of lactose.

I understand that wine or beer yeasts cannot ferment lactose. You say you added lactose to "bottle condition" . Wouldn't the lactose add a little sweetness not CO2?

 

[Rileysowner]

I understand that wine or beer yeasts cannot ferment lactose. You say you added lactose to "bottle condition" . Wouldn't the lactose add a little sweetness not CO2?

Since I didn't have kegs available to force carbonate, I decided to bottle condition. However, the suggestion made above was to stabilize and back sweeten to 1.012. Doing that would have made it impossible to bottle condition, so I figured I would try lactose since it is not fermentable. I did add dextrose to get the bottle carbonation shooting for about 2.5 volumes of CO2. As I said, it worked wonderfully, but I didn't keep records of how much lactose I added nor did I take a gravity reading after I added it. I should have, but I had other batches to bottle at the same time, so I didn't keep accurate records and went by feel and guesstimated. As usual, doing so has resulted in a product I really like which I likely will not be able to replicate.

 

[biochemedic]

Since I didn't have kegs available to force carbonate, I decided to bottle condition. However, the suggestion made above was to stabilize and back sweeten to 1.012. Doing that would have made it impossible to bottle condition, so I figured I would try lactose since it is not fermentable. I did add dextrose to get the bottle carbonation shooting for about 2.5 volumes of CO2. As I said, it worked wonderfully, but I didn't keep records of how much lactose I added nor did I take a gravity reading after I added it. I should have, but I had other batches to bottle at the same time, so I didn't keep accurate records and went by feel and guesstimated. As usual, doing so has resulted in a product I really like which I likely will not be able to replicate.

Lost track of this thread over the holidays...

You should still be able to back your way into how much lactose (roughly) you added. Even if you didn't check a gravity sample prior to bottling, you certainly can degas a sample, get it up to appropriate temperature, and check a gravity now. I forget what the PPPG for lactose is, but you can look that up, and using your total volume, calculate about how much lactose you used. Even if you didn't have a pre-lactose finishing gravity, you could estimate that too; in my experience, this recipe finishes almost completely dry, my FG's have been between 1.000 and 1.003.

As an aside, I've used the lactose with priming sugar technique for semi-sweet cider in the past, prior to my starting kegging. It does work, and the cider I made that was wasn't bad, but I will say that I like the stabilize/backsweeten/keg carb technique much better!

Glad you like the recipe, and yes, it is very refreshing, and I also could see it being nice for relaxing on a hot day!