Any suggestions for some sweet, flat milk stout?

[brodington]

I have been given 10 or so bottles of American Milk Stout brewed by a friend. (He found them in his cellar)

They are probably about a year old. They taste VERY sweet and have zero carbonation....

Is there any magic tricks I can do with them as they are undrinkable at the moment?

I have a few ideas,

1. Syphon bottles into a demijohn and add some oak chips, mature for a while then add some high attenuation yeast (champers or us05) to try to get rid of any residual sweetness. Wait till any fermentation finishes then prme and bottle.

2. Could I use any funky bacteria? Brett of similar (never done this type of thing before so have zero knowledge on this)

3. Bin the lot.

All ideas / suggestions are welcome.

[Gold]

The lactose in milk stout is unfermentable by yeast (which is why it is used) so reseeding with yeast is unlikely to do much.

[Morten]

Use them for cooking.

As Gold says, lactose is unfermentable.

[woblylegs]

you could put them in a corni keg if you have one and force carb it.

[jmc]

Cooking & force carbing would be good or maybe dilution by bottling it with another brew that can take some extra residual sweetness.

I hear lactase enzyme can break down lactose to fermentable / digestible sugars but its not cheap.

If you wanted to go the brett route you could put some in a DJ with dregs from a lambic brew and see what happens. Bear in mind this is likely to turn most of lactose into lactic acid rather than ethanol so be prepared fror a result that's mouth-puckering...

See also
Seymour Chocolate Milk Stout

[seymour]

If they taste good, albeit too sweet, then blending is the way to go. Just like an old-fashioned publican, right?

Next time you brew a bog-standard stout, ferment as usual, and pour these bottles in with it, adding a background hint of lacto sweetness and possibly other complex, aged layers. Mmmm.

[brodington]

That last suggestion sounds the best to me. Looks like it us a stout next then.

Well maybe another hoppy pale ale first...then a stout.