The Bar Towel

I was thinking of trying to ferment milk. I am not sure on this but I figure lactose free milk has been processed with lactase. Thus the lactose in the milk has already been broken down into a simple sugar (which I have no wild guess what that be) that can be processed by those who are lactose intolerant.

I also figure it will be pretty disgusting, but a worthy experiment.

Anyone else with weird fermentation ideas?

I don`t think the lactose can be fermented by the beer yeast, that`s what you get in milk stouts, that residual sweetness. A good example is Creme Brulee at the LCBO right now. How about a real Oyster Stout. Or a cock ale from the 1500s:

"Take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken (you must gut him when you flaw him). Then, put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it five pounds of raisins of the sun - stoned; some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has been working, put the bag and ale together in vessel.
In a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottle just above the neck and give it the same time to ripen as other ale."

Cock, meaning chicken....

Here s the modern version:
"Take a few pieces of _cooked_ chicken and a few chicken bones (approx one tenth of the edible portion of the bird) well crushed or minced.

Also take half of pound of raisins, a very little mace, and one or maybe two cloves. Add all these ingrediants to half a bottle of string country white wine. Soak for 24 hrs. Then make on gallon of beer as follows:

1 lb Malt extract
1 Oz Hops
1/2 lb demerarra sugar
1 gallon water
Yeast and nutrient

Add the whole of the chicken mixture to the beer at the end of the second day. Fermentation will last six or seven days longer than usual and the ale should be matured at least one month in the bottle. This cock ale is of the barley wine type.

If I was going to throw meat into a brew it definitely be bacon. heh.

duncan wrote:I was thinking of trying to ferment milk. I am not sure on this but I figure lactose free milk has been processed with lactase. Thus the lactose in the milk has already been broken down into a simple sugar (which I have no wild guess what that be) that can be processed by those who are lactose intolerant.

I also figure it will be pretty disgusting, but a worthy experiment.

Anyone else with weird fermentation ideas?

The breakdown of the disaccharide lactose by the enzyme lactase will yield glucose and galactose monomers, respectively. If you ended up pitching yeast into lactose free milk, you would probably end up with some bubbling or frothing, but the amount of sugar present would likely be consumed quite quickly.

A caveat with respect to the choice of lactose free milk would be the process by which the lactose is excluded:
For example, Lactantia brand uses enzymatic cleavage resulting in the two monosaccharides mentioned above (glucose and galactose), so there would be a little bit of fermentable sugar for your yeast to thrive upon. However, Natrel uses a filtration process to exclude lactose altogether, so it's neither broken down into its simple constituents nor present after filtration. This might leave your yeast with very little to no fermentable sugar to work with.

Food for thought I suppose.

Consider making cheese?

You might want to look up some info on Kumis

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis?wasRedirected=true

Flood wrote: A caveat with respect to the choice of lactose free milk would be the process by which the lactose is excluded:
For example, Lactantia brand uses enzymatic cleavage resulting in the two monosaccharides mentioned above (glucose and galactose), so there would be a little bit of fermentable sugar for your yeast to thrive upon. However, Natrel uses a filtration process to exclude lactose altogether, so it's neither broken down into its simple constituents nor present after filtration. This might leave your yeast with very little to no fermentable sugar to work with.

Food for thought I suppose.

Thanks. The information I was looking for. Granted if I am going through with this idea......

To paraphrase Homer Simpson "mmm, beer and yogurt together at last".

I vividly remember trying Kumis. I am pretty open minded and curious to trying local drinks. I saw it in a restaurant and asked for it. The server's gringo detector went off and he refused to serve it to me. He flat out told me I would not like it. I insisted and promised to pay for it no matter what happened. I think I even promised to pay up front. He got the owner of the restaurant and the debate continued. Finally they relented and opened a bottle for me. It was definitely one of the most horrible things I have tasted.

They were gracious enough to not say I told you so!

EDIT: Actually I must correct the above. It was not Kumis I tried, it was a similar fermented but also salted milk. The name sounds the same, but escapes me now. It was in the middle east. Terrible anyway!

Salted milk!

Closest thing I've had to that is a lassi with salt... though I do prefer lassi with sugar.

At least you go to try the champagne of milks and determine whether it was an enjoyable experience.