Thinking about adding Lactose next batch.

[GrowleyMonster]

So my basic recipe, whatever style you choose to call it, is 5 gallons from 10lb Viking 2-row pale, 1lb 350 chocolate malt, 2-1/2lb oats, and up til now, 1-1/2lb yellow corn grits, but I am dropping the grits for now. Hops varies but is usually an ounce of Cascade or Helga, sometimes a bit more, for an hour boil and yeast is usually BE-134, BE-256, or Voss Kviek if I need high temperature tolerance and have also used US-05 to good results. To the basic recipe I usually can find a pound of something interesting to add. Nothing written in stone except the pound of 350, the 10lb of 2-row, and the cannister of Quaker quick oats. I will sometimes add some honey, or Steen's syrup, or a few tbsp molasses, or some turbinado. Or whatever is on sale at LHBS.

What I get, if this makes sense, is a very creamy beer with a lot of head, crazy suds even with just 5lb of CO2 pressure on the keg, and though most would say my beer is very under-hopped, to me it is still a little dry and snappy tasting. Don't get me wrong, I still like it just fine, but Mrs Monster remembers when I started brewing and was using Northern Brewer kits, especially the Block Party Ale kit and just adding a little of this and that to it. She really liked the liquid bread character and the residual sweetness, and she drank a fair amount of that, but now she will take a sip out of my glass and she's good. To be fair, she doesn't like store bought beer at all, so I should be proud, but I am thinking about adding maybe a half cup of lactose either at the beginning or the end of the boil, haven't decided which. This is a moderately big beer almost never under 1.075, and I am wondering if a half cup lactose will even make a difference, or if maybe instead it will be too prominent. Opinions? And with the lactose, should I cut back on the oats? Add some crystal? I just got some in, some "cookie" stuff that MoreBeer sells, and I got a feeling a half pound of it will be a good addition. Hey, I like cookies, so it's got to be good, hmmm? More fermentables is always a good thing, right? LOL

Another thing... I leave it in the BMB until there is absolutely no more hubble bubble in the airlock, not even one blurp in an hour. Think I ought to cold crash it a little earlier? Maybe just let it have a max of 10 days in the fermenter, something like that? I have been going usually about 3 weeks and I'm not constantly checking the grav all the time, but I am usually only seeing a drop of one point or so in the final week, if that. Fermenting is at normal room temp, usually about 73f, plus whatever couple of degrees the yeast adds in the first day or two. A cooling system is really not an option right now.

 

[Jag75]

Not sure a half cup of lactose will be evident. I use 1# of it in my chocolate milk stouts.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

Not sure a half cup of lactose will be evident. I use 1# of it in my chocolate milk stouts.

Thanks for the reply. Nothing like empirical results.

I just spent a few minutes crunching numbers. A teaspoon of sugar in a pint of something wet is just noticeable. Take lemonade, for instance. Or iced tea. For the record, I happen to hate sweet tea and prefer my iced tea unsweet, but that's besides the point. A teaspoon isn't very much but is noticeably different than none at all. A tablespoon is quite a lot, and makes most anything overpoweringly sweet. So a teaspoon to one and a half teaspoons is probably a good range? I'm just playing with the numbers here.

40 US pints in a 5 gallon batch. There are 48 teaspoons in a cup. 40 teaspoons would be .8333 cup. A full cup would be 1.2 teaspoons per pint. Seems a reasonable amount, on the face of it.

I assume your use of the # symbol is meant to represent a pound. I couldn't find the volume of a pound of lactose or vice versa in a quick duck duck go search, but regular table sugar is 7 oz to the cup, or .44 lbs per cup. So a pound of sugar is 2.27 cups, or 109 teaspoons, divided into each pint would be 2.73 teaspoons per pint of beer. Now that seems pretty sweet to me, but those figures are for table sugar. You regularly use a pound of lactose, in I assume a 5 gallon batch of chocolate milk stout, and obviously you find the result to be good. So, yeah I think my idea to start with a half cup is maybe a waste of time, in light of your apparent results.

So let me look at a full cup. Again, working with the weight of table sugar here. A full measured cup would be .44 lbs. That's less than half of what you are using successfully. A half pound of sugar would be 1.14 cups of sugar, or 1.36 teaspoons per pint. Again, this is ordinary granulated sucrose, not lactose, and their level of sweetening probably isn't exactly the same, either.

Working the other way, let's say I assume two teaspoons per pint in a five gallon batch. That is 80 teaspoons, or 1.67 cups, or .73 pounds. Of sugar. 11.73 oz. 333 grams, for metric heads.

I have a pound of lactose on hand. I think I will be influenced by your recipe and thoughts and forget about the half cup or one cup business, and weigh out 3/4 lb of lactose for the next batch and see how that works out, and then if indicated, I will work up in quarter pound increments until I find the sweet but not too sweet spot. I think I will do a single step mash at about 152 degrees for 60 minutes. Should work okay because the only unmalted fermentable will be quick oats. I think I really need to have a simple and consistent mash in order to properly evaluate the effect of the lactose. Once I have my lactose addition nailed down I might infuse with cacao and coffee. Finally, I will re-evaluate my hopping. That should give me my forever recipe.

 

[VikeMan]

Again, this is ordinary granulated sucrose, not lactose, and their level of sweetening probably isn't exactly the same, either.

Not exactly the same, and not even close. Lactose is perceived as roughly 20% as sweet as sucrose.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

Not exactly the same, and not even close. Lactose is perceived as roughly 20% as sweet as sucrose.

Ah ok. I was concerned about the beer being blatantly, overtly, overwhelmingly sweet. I think I will up it to an even pound. It seems to work for @Jag75 so maybe it will work for me.

So I am thinking add it late in the boil. Or should I add it early, with the hops? I plan to do the usual 60 minute boil, an ounce of Cascade in the spider for the whole hour, chill, transfer to BMB, and pitch a one quart starter from my last batch, derived from BE-256 and HotHead. I just kind of let the two of them duke it out and may the best yeast win. It worked great for the last two batches. Anyway no dry hopping, just the one ounce cascade in the boil. I do not like hoppy beers and I think excessive hopping would be detrimental to this recipe anyway. So just a touch of sweet but a good bit of creaminess ought to be the result. and I think I will like it.

 

[VikeMan]

So I am thinking add it late in the boil. Or should I add it early, with the hops?

My guess is that it probably wouldn't make a noticeable difference.

 

[k-os]

I add my lactose (typically 1 pound for 5 gallons) at flame out so as to avoid scorching any to the bottom of the kettle/electric element I use.

 

[GrowleyMonster]

Okay, so that's what I did. Brewed day before yesterday, final mash bill was 10lb 2 row pale, 1lb 350L Chocolate, 1lb Viking Cookie Malt, upped the oats to an even 3lbs, and stirred in a pound of lactose at flameout. Final volume is 5-3/4 gallons. More than 5 gallons but I will just bottle the overage.

 

[Jag75]

Okay, so that's what I did. Brewed day before yesterday, final mash bill was 10lb 2 row pale, 1lb 350L Chocolate, 1lb Viking Cookie Malt, upped the oats to an even 3lbs, and stirred in a pound of lactose at flameout. Final volume is 5-3/4 gallons. More than 5 gallons but I will just bottle the overage.

Curious about that cookie malt . Keep us posted .

 

[GrowleyMonster]

Curious about that cookie malt . Keep us posted .

https://www.vikingmalt.com/product/cookie-malt/