Is it possible to treat dairy with lactase to make it lactose free at home?
Part of my unending series of ice cream related questions: I’m mildly lactose intolerant and usually don’t have a lot of upset from a small amount of ice cream. (Especially since cream is naturally lower in lactose.) While lactose-free milk is widely available here, LF anything else is harder to find and/or overpriced. In particular regarding ice cream making, evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk aren’t available LF, and due to what they are have whopping amounts of lactose.
Can these or the cooked base be pre-treated using the lactase pills I keep around to make them lactose free? And how would I go about this re: heating or time required?
(I suppose a possible hack would be using a matching flavour of whey isolate powder, the stuff used for protein shakes after workouts, but I’m still curious about breaking up the lactose in regular dairy.)
Best Answer
Ways to make lactose-free dairy at home
- Grind your lactase pills into powder, dissolve them in warm water, and dump the solution into your milk. Wait 24-48 hours.
- More convenient is to add 7 drops of liquid Lactase. Wait 24-48 hours and 70% of the lactose is gone.
- More economical is to buy bulk lactase powder. Dissolve it in warm water and pour it into your milk. Wait 24-48 hours.
- Another economical option is half-making yogurt. The yogurt bacteria (Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, and Lactobacillus acidophilus) eat the lactose. I pour a gallon of milk into a pot inside another pot of water. Heat the milk to 185°F for 30 minutes. Then cool the pot of milk to 110° in cold water in the kitchen sink. Pitch the milk with 2-3 Tbsp. of plain fresh yogurt with "active cultures" and pour the milk back into the milk jug. Put the jug of milk into a food dehydrator (or anything else with good temperature control) and incubate at 104° for 3-4 hours. At that point you'll have slightly thickened milk. Shake it and use like normal. After 7 hours incubation you'll have yogurt. Strain off the whey and you'll have greek yogurt. Both have whey less lactose in them.
All these techniques will dramatically reduce the lactose in milk.
Fun Tips
- Adjust the flavor of the milk-gurt by playing with the temperature. Lactobacillus bulgaricus prefers 110° and the other two prefer 99°. The different resulting acids (lactic, folic, formic) affect the flavor.
- Yogurt bacteria break down lactose into acids. You can test the acidity to roughly determine how much lactose has been consumed.
- The higher the acidity, the longer the treated milk will last.
- You can mix-n-match, half-making yogurt and then adding lactase to the result.
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Quick Answer about "Is it possible to treat dairy with lactase to make it lactose free at home?"
Lactose-free milk is made by adding lactase to regular milk, breaking down lactose into simple sugars that are easier to digest. Though it's slightly sweeter, it can be a good alternative for people with lactose intolerance. Still, it's unsuitable for people with dairy allergy or those avoiding dairy for other reasons.How do you make lactose-free milk with lactase?
The easiest way to do this is to add lactase to the milk. Lactase drops are available at many stores or from online retailers, such as Amazon. The amount of lactose removed from the milk depends on how much lactase you add and how long you give the enzyme to react (usually 24 hours for full activity).Can I put lactase pills in milk?
Take enzyme tablets, or add drops to your dairy But you can top up the enzyme in your digestive system by taking lactase tablets just before you take in dairy. You can also add lactase drops to a container of milk or cream. Just be sure to wait 24 hours before you consume it.How do you make a product lactose free?
Using lactase The simplest way for manufacturers to remove the lactose is to break it down before people consume it. This is very similar to how your body would have broken down the lactose themselves. To do so, manufacturers simply add the lactase enzyme to milk.How do you get lactose out of milk?
The traditional method of eliminating lactose in milk involves adding lactase or beta-galactosidase enzyme to the milk. These enzymes hydrolyse the lactose into its constituent sugars: galactose and glucose. These sugars are sweeter in taste than lactose and give the milk an unsatisfactory flavour.Lactose Intolerance Treatments: 6 Tips to Get Your Dairy Back
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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