Xylitol

[tingo]

Hi all. I have been making wine for about 8 years now and pride myself on my knowledge but i recently stumbled on an article talking about back sweetening with a sugar alcohol known as xylitol. Apparently yeast cannot metabolize it so no stabilizers are needed. Anyone have any insight or experience you can share with your ol buddy tingo?

 

[rob]

I too would like to know more, a little research shows it about 8.00 a pound it is all natural.....I will keep digging

 

[rob]

Poison to dogs......

 

[MiBor]

I'm looking for a solution to back-sweeten MLFd wine, just in case I have to offset the acidity a little. So far, the only sugars that do not ferment (therefore don't require sorbate to prevent fermentation) are Stevia and Xylitol. Maybe there are other options, but I wasn't able to find them.
Personally, I don't like the taste of Stevia, and Xylitol doesn't inspire me a whole lot either.
Does anyone know of other methods or non-fermenting sugars that could be used for this purpose? Maybe @Rice_Guy could elaborate on the subject...
Thanks.

 

[1d10t]

Does anyone know of other methods or non-fermenting sugars that could be used for this purpose? Maybe @Rice_Guy could elaborate on the subject...
Thanks.

Sugar has a left and right 'handedness'. Both occur naturally but some company was still awarded a patent on it. I don't remember which is which but the one tastes the same as the other but we can't digest it. Probably the same thing for most yeast. Looks like we won't see it till after the patent expires though if it hasn't hit the market by now. That or it is just too expensive to produce.

 

[MiBor]

I remember reading about L-sugars a while ago, in an article that said that they are extremely expensive to manufacture and there were no bacteria or enzyme that could produce them naturally.
Today I kept digging on the internet for non-fermentable sugars and I found out that maltodextrin (which is used commercially in a lot of foods) doesn't ferment and has a pleasant sweet taste. It's fairly cheap and I think I'll get some and do some bench trials with it.

 

[cmason1957]

There is some literature about using sorbate in a wine that has undergone mlf, indicating that if and only if all the malic acid had been consumed (which probably requires a high quality lab to show) you can safely add sorbate. The geraniums smell occurs if the Malolactic Bacteria is active in the presence of sorbate. Given that, I wonder if you were to add lysazome to the wine to inhibit MLB, you might be able to also add sorbate. Most commercial wineries will sterile filter, instead of adding sorbate.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Yeast will not ferment xylitol. It is an alcohol.
The flavor is not as clean as fructose, or table sugar or nutrisweet. I would do a bench trial to see if I liked the flavor on my wine.
Industry doesn’t use a lot of it, but it works well in sugar free gum and toothpaste.

Hi all. I have been making wine for about 8 years now and pride myself on my knowledge but i recently stumbled on an article talking about back sweetening with a sugar alcohol known as xylitol. Apparently yeast cannot metabolize it so no stabilizers are needed. Anyone have any insight or experience you can share with your ol buddy tingo?

 

[1d10t]

I remember reading about L-sugars a while ago, in an article that said that they are extremely expensive to manufacture and there were no bacteria or enzyme that could produce them naturally.
Today I kept digging on the internet for non-fermentable sugars and I found out that maltodextrin (which is used commercially in a lot of foods) doesn't ferment and has a pleasant sweet taste. It's fairly cheap and I think I'll get some and do some bench trials with it.

I'm familiar with maltodextrin from beer making. I wouldn't consider it a sweetener by any means. In brewing it is used to add body and mouthfeel.

https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-maltodextrin.htm

 

[Scooter68]

I'd be very careful about using any of the artificial sweeteners (even they are from natural sources like Stevia) The stability of those products in a wine could be sketchy, and with many of them some folks can taste the differences immediately. Like stevia, some folks get a bad aftertaste some folks don't. All in all I'd prefer to either sterile filter or use Sorbate. (Yes, I know Sorbate has some issues too.)

 

[FunkedOut]

I had bought some to try in coffee a while back.
Didn’t like it because t had a ‘bright’ flavor.
That’s the best I can describe it.

I used it to back sweeten an apple cider and the flavor profile fit well.
This was a champagne style cider, off dry.

 

[montanarick]

There is some literature about using sorbate in a wine that has undergone mlf, indicating that if and only if all the malic acid had been consumed (which probably requires a high quality lab to show) you can safely add sorbate. The geraniums smell occurs if the Malolactic Bacteria is active in the presence of sorbate. Given that, I wonder if you were to add lysazome to the wine to inhibit MLB, you might be able to also add sorbate. Most commercial wineries will sterile filter, instead of adding sorbate.

I believe the answer is yes. I had asked Mike Jones, from Scott Labs, at this year's Montana Grape and Winery Assoc. Annual Conference if adding lysozyme after MLF would prevent the geranium smell if using sorbate and he had indicated that it would. I have tried it and it did work for me - hope this helps.