oldbloke wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:58 pm
For sweetening I now always use lactose. It can go in at the start as it's not fermentable, and has none of the off tastes other artificial sweeteners have
True, lactose is harmless. I've used a pound in a 23 litre batch of stout, and couldn't really detect it. How much do you need to use and how much does it sweeten?
To sweeten with pure stevia, for a 23 litre batch, I'd use at most 3 grams. Since stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar, that's the equivalent of 900 grams of table sugar.
From what I've read (and is it true?) lactose is one fifth the sweetness of table sugar, so for 3 grams of stevia = 900 grams of sugar, you would need 4500 grams of lactose.
Even if that estimate is off by a whopping 25%, that would still be over 3 kg of lactose, in a 23 L batch of beer.
Is any of that correct in your experience, or have I made a huge mistake somewhere?
As to stevia, it's a natural sweetener extracted from a plant (typically in China
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
), but it does have a certain bitterness to some people. My wife, in particular, doesn't like it much. I can't really taste anything off. I think it's a bit like cilantro: some people (not me or my wife) say cilantro tastes like soap. I think there must be a genetic disposition for one or the other.