Cider Back Sweetening

[brend2b]

So I have 5 gallons of cider I made about a month ago that have fermented down to 1.001. I'm looking to back sweeten it before carbonating. I'm not looking to go through of the hassle of back sweetening with a fermentable sugar and then pasteurizing.

I recently tried pure Stevia to back sweeten a small amount of cider that I can scale to the rest of the batch. I heard good things about it having relatively no aftertaste. When I tried to back sweeten today it was completely impossible to measure the amount needed (the serving size on the bottle is 1/64th of a teaspoon), and no matter how small the amount I put in I was left with a horrible aftertaste.

Has anyone had good experiences back sweetening with an unfermentable sugar? Lactose maybe? I want to stay away from any artificial sweetener that will give me any aftertaste.

 

[david_42]

You might try mixing the Stevia with dextrose to make it easier to test the quantity to use. Mix 1/4 tsp Stevia with 2 tablespoons + 2 tsp of dextrose and you have a 32:1 ratio. Instead of trying to measure 1/64th of a tsp, you'd be using 1/2 tsp of the mix.

 

[frakkin]

I used xylitol and it has absolutely no weird tastes. I tried some straight up out of curiosity and it's just like sugar, except more neutral. It's not an artificial sweetener, either. It's found in fruits and vegetables. I think it's perfect for sweetening cider.

Bonus: Helps prevent cavities. Lol.