Adding Lactose into a Recipe

[benchharp]

Hi,

Very new to brewing.

I recently tried this excellent recipe Chocolate Vanilla Porter recipe.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/29265/chocolate-vanilla-porter

I want to try it again, but think it would benefit from an addition of lactose to sweeten it up a little.

In order to do this do i simply add Lactose, and if so how would i know how much?

or

Do i need to substitute some of the other ingredients out? again, if so, what would you suggest?

Appreciate any direction.

Thanks

 

[Over The Cliff Brewing]

I think it depends on your recipe if you will need to remove or add anything. I have used lactose as a late boil addition in a Black IPA extract recipe and it came out great.

 

[Finn B]

Hi,

Very new to brewing.

I recently tried this excellent recipe Chocolate Vanilla Porter recipe.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/29265/chocolate-vanilla-porter

I want to try it again, but think it would benefit from an addition of lactose to sweeten it up a little.

In order to do this do i simply add Lactose, and if so how would i know how much?

or

Do i need to substitute some of the other ingredients out? again, if so, what would you suggest?

Appreciate any direction.

Thanks

As the yeast doesn't ferment lactose, it won't affect anything but mouthfeel and maybe taste. So don't throw anything out. You'll get a higher OG, but the FG will also be correspondingly higher.

Lactose doesn't add much sweetness.I once threw half a kilo (a pound) into 23 liters (6 gallons) of a very dry cider, hoping to make it a little less dry. If I did make it less dry, I couldn't notice it much. But I think that's what you usually add to a beer like that. (In Brewing Classic Styles Zainasheff has one pound in a sweet stout.)

 

[GFHomebrew]

You could also loose the simple sugar from the recipie which looks to me like it's countering the oats carapils and light crystal malts there in the recipie which should provide some decent mouthfeel in the finished beer. That's what I'd do if I were to brew this.

Good luck

 

[Finn B]

You could also loose the simple sugar from the recipie which looks to me like it's countering the oats carapils and light crystal malts there in the recipie which should provide some decent mouthfeel in the finished beer. That's what I'd do if I were to brew this.

Good luck

Makes very good sense. I actuallly didn't look at the recipe, assuming that if it made a good porter, it was Ok. But sugar in a porter - why was that put there? I quite agree; throwing thay out will do more for that beer than adding the lactose. Though the lactose probably won't hurt, either.