How many litres of milk can you get from 1 kg of condensed milk?

According to a forum calculation, a kilo of condensed milk can yield up to 10 litres of milk

A one-kilo can of condensed milk, water and a jug. From that you would get between 6.6 and 10 litres, depending on the desired consistency, according to the calculation used in the thread. The calculation is also based on the product's own label, which according to a user who quotes the packaging sets the serving at 20 grams. This is an amateur estimate, not data from the manufacturer.

How much milk comes from a 1 kg can of condensed milk?

According to the person making the calculation, the label indicates a serving of 20 grams. If that spoonful makes a 20-centilitre glass, a fifth of a litre, then a litre requires 100 grams. A one-kilo can, therefore, yields 10 litres. That user says he has tested it by hand: with 20 grams you get a decent glass and the can stretches to ten jugs.

The problem is the taste. With that proportion the milk is watery and sweet, always in the words of the person who did the test. Going up to 30 grams per glass improves the texture, but the yield drops to 6.6 litres per kilo. The range he suggests is there, between the most stingy version and the most appetising.

Price per litre: the 22-cent calculation

With a can at 2.20 euros and a yield of 10 litres, the reconstituted litre would cost 22 cents, according to that same calculation. At 30 grams per glass the figure rises. The argument that is repeated is twofold: price and logistics. A kilo of condensed milk takes up less space and keeps longer than ten litres of fresh milk in the fridge.

Some take it to the extreme and suggest stockpiling one-kilo cans thinking of scarcity scenarios. It sounds exaggerated, but it describes the logic: a stable, dense and cheap product per final litre.

The catch: what comes out is not milk

Here the idyll breaks down. Condensed milk is not dehydrated milk: it is milk with a huge amount of added sugar. As another user summarises, what comes out of the can and water is not milk, but a sweet concoction. Some say it bluntly: if what you want is milk, the right product is powdered milk, not condensed milk.

The inverse ratio helps to understand the density of the invention: according to another post, to make 190 grams of condensed milk you need 500 millilitres of milk. The can concentrates milk and, above all, sugar. Using it as a daily substitute for fresh milk is debatable, and those who defend it in the thread do so because of the price.

The trick comes from 1980s summer camps

Reconstituting condensed milk is not a recent invention. According to one user's account, it became popular in children's camps in the eighties as a cheap way to give milk to many children. Cans from the fifties show, according to his testimony, that the practice goes back a long way: condensed milk was given to children as a regular food, and among his memories the brand Clesa appears.

The memory of those cans clashes with today's view. Before it was children's food; now it is a money-saving trick.

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The conclusion crashes against a detail: according to that calculation, the one-kilo can yields 10 litres only if the palate tolerates the watery version. With decent texture it stays at 6.6. The saving, according to those same calculations, would be real. The milk, debatable.