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Birch Sugar

carboy7

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Joined
Dec 4, 2003
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Location
New Jersey
I was wondering if anyone has used birch sugar in a beer? It's also called Xylitol. It does not decay teeth like table sugar, but can be used as an equal to it. I don't know if the yeast in beer would digest it the same as other sugars? It comes from the bark of a birch tree, and has a great taste. But I don't want to put a pound in a beer and find out all I did was make it undrinkably sweet.
                            Keep Brewing,
                                                       Doug  :-/
 
I'm not familiar with this particular sweetner, but looking at a few web sites it appears it is a "sugar alcohol" and not a "sugar" so it might have a very low fermentability if it ferments at all.  This would likely make the beer quite sweet, but not in a malty way.

I guess my other question is what are you trying to achieve by using this sugar?  If you are just using it as a sweetener, there are many proven alternatives.  If you are trying to add alcohol, again there are many alternatives (rice, corn, sugar).

Cheers!
Brad
 
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