So, this morning, I opened a new bottle of milk and was struck by an unexpected taste. It tasted like malted milk. Not very strongly, but the taste was there. No one else in my family could taste it, but then again, I’m the only one that can detect the sugar in the Sriracha sauce. So, what would cause milk to have a malted taste without the malt powder?
Was the milk ultra-pasteurized? UHT milk can have caramel-like flavors - the high temperatures it is subjected to can cause browning reactions.
Where I am from, milk rarely comes in bottles. Do you get your milk from a small producer? If so, the taste can vary when the cows are moved to new pasture. (Commercial milk is all mixed together for pasteurization so what the individual herd is eating becomes irrelevant)
Maybe the cow was eating a lot of barley…?
This is exactly what I was thinking. Now I finally have a description for that taste. I used to call it “lightly cooked.”