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BLAAND EXPERIMENT Done

BILLY BREW

Grandmaster Brewer
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In making yogurt there is the yogurt and then there is the whey.
I have been trying to find uses for whey other than conditioner for hair.

My home brew club came up with a quarterly project making "alternate" beer styles not using wheat or barley.
Any recipe I found was either not well reviewed, or the ingredients were impossible to find. So I went in search of...

Lo and behold... a recipe from ancient times that is a whey brew called BLAAND Now to be fair it is called a wine, mead, and beer, depending on what website you look at. But what the hell.

This is the exact recipe. I will see how this works then, if good, will start saving my yogurt whey for future batches

Ingredients;
4 gallons whole milk
1 c lemon juice
4 lbs table sugar
1 tsp dry yeast (high alcohol tolerance) L-1118

Equipment Needed that you don't already have

Strainer
Cheese cloth (or cheese bag, if you want to make cheese with the curds)
submersible thermometer

Procedure;
Bring milk up to 200 degrees and simmer for 15 minutes
Stir in lemon juice and stir reducing heat let sit for 20 minutes
strain out the curds
Bring whey back up to 185-200 degrees and stir in sugar making sure it is totally dissolved
Reduce temperature and put into carboy
Aerate vigorously.
Introduce yeast and swirl.
OG 1.25 or so. According to Beersmith, this will come out @ 39.4%avb but I couldn't get the program to read everything.

Rack to secondary when activity has slowed to get wort off any milk solids and trub.
Let sit until clear.
Bottle and store.

There are 2 versions of this drink
NEW; Let sit 60 days
Old; Let sit 6 + months

According to what I read;
New Blaand is bright and refreshing with a vanilla coconut nose and a pineapple citrus taste.
Old Blaand is smoother and oakey with a finish not unlike Guinness mouth feel.

I will update (if this stuff doesn't kill me) ??? as time progresses.

If it doesn't work, it cost me $5 for milk, $2 for lemon juice and 2 hours of my life. I was bored anyway.
BUT if this works? EEEH HAAA

NOTE; After 18 days it is still bubbling away and a leathery film has formed over the top. Still cloudy.Racked off to secondary to get it away from the funky top. Pulled some yeast with it to try to get more fermentation going. No off aromas or flavors.
Still way too sweet to bottle. Leaving it another week. (27 days) gravity 1.25-1.073 so far.

3/13/2020; Still fermenting after 35 days... I suspect some WILD yeast got in. Still has nice aroma of vanilla and citrus.
                  Taste is getting alcohol heat, but still way sweet.
                  Gravity down to 1.038. Still cloudy, so I boiled up some Irish moss and added, along with wild
                  yeast killer. Split off 1 gallon to get it off yeast cake that has formed on the bottom, to try to stop
                  fermentation and clarify, without affecting the whole batch.
3/21/2020; Racked of to secondary and added 20 oz chicago water to top off. Starting to clear and settle down. 1.026
                Split off a bomber to see what will happen.
                *** Made a parallel batch with 2 lbs of clover honey in a 1 gallon demi-john, to see if it would come out
                different.
3/26/2020;  Tested today and the flavor is still sweet, but very well carbonated. The carbonation strips away any cloying
                from the sugar. A bit like a sweet mead in flavor and texture. Returned to main batch. Still not to pleasant to
                drink. 
3/27/2020; Cold steeped 8 oz roasted barley and 1 oz centennial leaf hop for 24 hours in 2 gallons of water
3/28/2020; Took gravity reading, 1.022. Added cold steep to batch to make 5 gallons Gravity reading 1.019. Let sit for
                  another 7 days and try to salvage this.
4/4/20; Bottled. Activity stopped completely. Condition for 60 days.
6/4/20; First tasting. A bit like a Scotch ale, with honey instead of malt for a backbone. Smooth mouthfeel. Not alcohol
            bite, but a definite effect on the head. Keep sampling as it ages and see.

3-5-20; Made 1 gallon with honey.
5-16-20; Much better result. Very pleasant flavor and aroma.
            I think this is the way to go. 2 lb honey per gallon of whey.
            same process with the addition of 1/2 tsp Irish moss
4/23/20; Third experiment using Extra Light DME. 3 lbs. per gallon of whey.
5/25/20; Not a repeat. Not enough sweetness or flavor to offset the whey saltiness.

LAST ENTRY AND RESULT

9/13/20; Out of all sweetner's tried, Honey is the way to go. Very refreshing and drinkable, though way more expensive than the table sugar recipe. The flavor is a cross between a cider and a sweet mead.


Final result is Blaand should be made with Honey as the base to get the best result. 2lbs honey per gallon of whey
 

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