Lactose Alternative To Sweeten Cider?

[thanme]

Hi,

So I have a new fermenting fridge that gives me room to fit 2 fermenters (rejoice!) and I'm about to put down another brew, so I figured while I do this one, I'll do something else simple, and the choice was to give cider ago because it seems really simple.

With SWMBO being the consumer, she likes a sweeter cider, and after a bit of reading, it appears the general rule is to add lactose to sweeten, but being lactose intolerant, I'm wondering if there is an alternative? I understand the use of lactose is because it's not overly fermentable, so I was wondering if something like corn syrup would do the trick? Apart from that, it'll basically be the apple + apple/pear juice combo and the Wyeast whose name escapes me at the moment.

Cheers

 

[brettprevans]

corn syrup is maltodex. so no thats wont make it sweet. theres info on the non beer brewing section on cider making and back sweetening.
are you bottling or kegging? if kegging its easy. ferment then keg. yeast goes dormant then add sugar or the like to sweeten.

 

[thanme]

oops. I didn't realise there was a non-beer brewing section :/

Yep kegging.

 

[brettprevans]

non-beer section here. lots of cider talk. kegging makes it easier. i cant remember the outcome of the last 'sweet cider' conversation. have a look through the section and there should be heaps of info.

 

[thanme]

Guess I didn't search as well as I'd thought

Thanks!

 

[Tim]

You should use sucralose (splenda) as it doesnt ferment and is also formulated to match sugar for volume. ie a teaspoon is equal to a teaspoon in sweetness. You can use it in a stout as well. It works better than lactose.

 

[brettprevans]

You should use sucralose (splenda)

:icon_vomit:
wiki on sucralose

 

[bum]

Yeah, if you're just going to dump in some artificial sweetener you might as well just make a kit cider - takes out some of the guess work and leaves it sweeter than an all-juice cider. One particular cider brewer here (whose opinion should always be considered) disagrees but the Blackrock cider kit turns out a halfway decent cider if you add a whack of juice instead of the dex (if your missus isn't that picky, that is). But since you are kegging, I would definitely look into just doing an all juice version and backsweeten with straight juice in the keg.