Milk stouts....would love to get input

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/matrimonial-milk-stout-imperial-sweet-stout.182525/

Found right there in the recipes sub forum.

 

One pound lactose in 5 gallons is an absolute maximum. Half a pound is an absolute minimum. 3/4 lb seems about right to my palate, and is the best place to start if you're not sure. I wouldn't use any more than a pound unless you like a syrupy beer.

 

Lactose doesn't ferment out, so it will add sweetness to your brew...unless you like them sweet, I'd stick with dmtaylors recommendations and go with 2/3-3/4 lb for a nice balance of body, mouthfeel and taste.

 

Love milk stouts and they're no more difficult to brew than any other beer.

 

There's nothing wrong with your recommendation to start with 3/4 lb, but eveyrthing else you've said here is just silly. For starters, lactose is not that sweet, it is in fact only 1/6th as sweet as table sugar. Don't believe it? Take a pinch of lactose powder and taste it, you'll find that it doesn't taste that sweet at all, certainly not what you normally think of as sugar sweetness. Lactose adds more body and a "milky" flavor (for lack of a better word) to the beer than it does sweetness. Also, to say that 1 lb is the absolute max and 1/2 lb is the absolute min is nonsensical, why would there be such a narrow acceptable range? I personally have brewed batches with more than a lb and the world certainly didn't end.

 

Boo...... I never said the term "sweet", did I. I said "syrupy". The world won't end if you use more than a pound, but some people won't think it meets the style or is enjoyable. To each his own. Please don't call my opinion silly and nonsensical, that's not very nice. Merry Christmas.

To answer atomeyes... sometimes I add it in the boil, but just as often I'll reserve the lactose addition for bottling day and then add it to taste. Boil up a pound per 5 gallons, and add half, then taste, then add more if you need more, or don't if you don't need more.

 

I did a 6gal batch following BCS sweet stout recipe, which included 1# lactose. I'm confident in the recipe and my procedures. It lacked a rich roasty flavor depth and had virtually no lactose body/sensation. I pin that on water issues. So amounts of lactose and recipe can be negated by water (as with most beers).

 

Water is an essential beer ingredient. You might very well be onto something there, scurvy. To my deep dark beers I often mash with my hard tap water but then add just a pinch of baking soda to the boil (i.e., after the mash) to soften the acidity from the dark roasted malts. You could add the soda in your mash but it might raise your pH too high, so, suffice it to say that there are calculators out there to help you nail your mash pH, with a goal of about 5.2-5.4.

 

I use distilled and build from there. Used BrewCipher calculator with brews friend targets for the sweet stout. I have a Baltic Porter, where I used brew cipher calc and targets for generic big dark beer, resting at 60. It smells and tastes so good I drank the entire sample.

 

Sorry to offend, but speaking in absolutes with such a narrowly defined range just doesn't make sense to me, there are too many variables.

 

This seems to be your personal preference (see http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/matrimonial-milk-stout-imperial-sweet-stout.182525/ ) , so it is what it is.

My personal preference is to dial in the lactose per each recipe to achieve the target beer, whether it is 2 lbs per 5 gallon batch or 0.5 lb per 5 gallon batch.

Lactose doesn't make the beer syrupy, under attenuation does that, as does maltodextrin. Lactose adds a creaminess to the beer, a very small amount of sweetness (if you disagree with the sweetness, do as @Homebrew42 said and taste it) and ups the FG.