jeffbrowand
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Anyone ever use Splenda instead of sugar in a root beer recipe?
I've done half & half (sugar and splenda), it's better than going straight splenda, but you can still tell that it has that artificial sweetener taste.
The active ingredient, stevia extract, in Splenda is natural and therefore, by definition, Splenda does not have an "artificial sweetener taste." Splenda just has a undesirable unsugar-like taste mostly due to a very long sweet aftertaste.
Splenda is not stevia.
Splenda is a brand name for sucralose and was on the market for a little while before stevia extract based sweeteners were even approved, so I'm not sure where you're getting that. I've worked with sucralose, aspartame, stevia glycosides, and a little bit of ace k, and all of them seem to have a lingering aftertaste, though I would agree that stevia seems to taste the cleanest. (Even if everything tastes sweet all day long after you breathe in that powder).
Perhaps "artificial sweetener" taste is the wrong term, but "high intensity sweetener" taste may be a more appropriate explanation. They all have certain nuances in flavor, but none of them taste like sugar in my opinion.
One thing about the most available type of Splenda is that it's actually sucralose on a maltodextrin carrier so that it measures cup for cup with sugar. This makes it easy to use and it does seem to add a little bit of body.
There is wisdom in a quote from Breaking Bad, which was something like, "I put ricin in that Stevia sh*t you always loved so much."
In my experience, the best tasting high intensity sweetener is a combination of 60% Aspartame and 40% Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K). You can buy them inexpensively at
http://pforlife.com/acesulfame-potassium-ace-k-200x-sweeter-than-sugar-kosher.html
http://herbstoreusa.com/sweetener-aspartame.html
What is the total amount used for a 5 gallon batch? I don't want the price to get out of hand. I'm also leaning towards the KISS method and sticking with sugar.
What is the total amount used for a 5 gallon batch? I don't want the price to get out of hand. I'm also leaning towards the KISS method and sticking with sugar.
I use about 1 cup per gallon as a starting point for my splenda. Of course I've never measured every bit of any batch but ... it's a starting point.
Why pay for fillers? I buy pure sucralose and measure it out to mix 50/50 with table sugar. I find this to be the best compromise between the "diet" aftertaste and sugar. I get mine from here but there are other places too. Splenda is cut with dextrose and maltodextrin to make it easier to use. Since a lot of brewers also have jewelry scales to measure water additions and hops, why not use it to save some money too. Here is what I go with to provide an equivalent of 5lbs of sugar for 5 gallons of soda.
80 cal/12oz serving:
2.5lbs (about 5.5 cups) sugar
1.89g Sucralose
You kind of lost me with the equilibrium part. Are you saying the sweetness dissipated over time?
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