So, the batch I have in now, I used Splenda in place of the priming sugar.
...............why?
There's an easy way to understand chirality. Hold out your hands, palms facing each other. Imagine that each hand is the chemical structure of a molecule. Most complex molecules are chiral. Like your hands, the two structures of chiral molecules - in sugars, they're referred to as D and L, from the Latin dexter and laevus - differ only in the arrangement of their elements. Put your hands together and they seem to match exactly. In the same way, the common sugar D-glucose is the mirror image of L-glucose, its rare counterpart. But put your hands down one on top of the other, both facing down, and you'll see that they're not identical at all; they're what chemists call non-superimposable.
Two enantiomers of a molecule will respond identically in a chemical reaction, but not so in biological systems. Proteins and cell receptors are designed to react only with particular enantiomers. For example, the enzymes in your stomach can digest only right-handed sugars. Just as a glove fits only on the proper hand, our bodies distinguish between the enantiomers of any given molecule.
Splenda usually contains 95% dextrose (the "right-handed" isomer of glucose - see dextrorotation and chirality), which the body readily metabolizes.
Splenda has an interesting chemical makeup, it is indentical in chemical makeup of glucose, but it is not able to be metabolized in a biological system. It a chiral molecule, identical in makeup but not the same physically.
Anyways, no fizzy beer, only really sweet flat stuff.
I thought sucralose was sugar bound with a couple chlorine atoms.
I thought sucralose was sugar bound with a couple chlorine atoms.
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