What does lactose taste like?

[JedSmithBrewery]

I'm making a simple cider ( pure organic juice and nottingham ) and I have done this before so I know what the word DRY means. I though to myself that I might want to make a balanced one this time. I want it to be sparkling, though. Here is my question, what does lactose taste like? I want to know because I do not want it to taste so unnatural that I forget what I am drinking. I have heard people say " lactose or splenda" I would never consider adding splenda because of the artificial and none too pleasant taste. If they are in the same taste category, then I would rather just drink this dry. If, however, lactose is similar to actual sugar then I would like to add it to this brew.

Also, how much should I add to a one gallon batch to make it balanced ( but not sweet).

Thanks
JSB

 

[Freezeblade]

I find that lactose is more adding body and a slight sweetness. IIRC it is only 40% as sweet as straight glucose. I understand with the splenda, I personally use some stevia (Stevia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) sweetener which is cut with lactose (I forget the trade name) and I only use a very small amount for people that don't like dry cider.

On the other hand I would also suggest trying a yeast that won't take your juice quite as dry, I've had great results with WL023 and others have spoken about using WLP300 (I haven't used the latter yet). If you really want a true sweet cider without an "artificial" taste, you're going to have to have a kegging setup.

 

[Scotty_g]

Lactose doesn't taste nasty. It's subtly sweet. It's not very sweet right up front like sucrose but it does sweeten; I've made several batches of VCCA with lactose and it comes out well--not quite as sweet as soda, but definitely sweetened. The VCCA has a fair amount of caramel 60 malt and 1 cup (give or take) of lactose. If you added 1 cup of lactose to a very dry (juice + notty), it would probably take the edge off but still be somewhat dry. 2 cups would probably get it on the sweet side, although I must admit I haven't done this experiment.

I think lactose has about 20% the sweetening power as sucrose by weight.

If you want to avoid artificial sweeteners (and I don't blame you), lactose will be a good choice. Otherwise, add enough dextrose that the yeast can't consume it all. I did this with a mead, and other than needing 18 months to mellow out and the 14% ABV , it turned out well.

If you're kegging, you could probably ferment, crash cool and rack to secondary (or out of the secondary), and hit it with one or two campden tablets to kill the yeast. Then you can sweeten with whatever you like.

 

[gregbathurst]

I've never used lactose but it sounds like it would give more calories than sweetness, not so good if you are trying to keep your weight down. I think I will keep to dry cider.

 

[david_42]

People's perception of how sweet lactose is varies a great deal. I'd recommend 2 ounces to start, then taste it.