Lactose and back sweetening beer (Plus other questions)

[lunchbox]

I'm brewing a blueberry wheat beer for a friends wedding, and I am trying to keep it pretty sweet as the lady of the house doesn't much like beer. She's recently had a "Wild Blue", which I've never had but I understand that it's been sweetened much like lindemans framboise has, and she loved it.

Would lactose sweeten up the beer like I'm looking for, or would I need to use something like splenda?

Also, I was going to use blueberries but I'm not sure how much I'll need for a 10 gallon batch. Thoughts?

[Jidas]

Well Splenda is about 3000 times more sweet than lactose but wont add any mouthfeel. Lactose really isn't that sweet to begin with. If you want to make it sweet add Splenda or a combination of both.

If you add anything make sure to do small scale trials to figure out how much to add to the whole batch.

Hope this helps

[dmtaylor]

Splenda in beer is terrible -- don't do it. I have, and regretted it, as it will make the beer taste funny, like artificial sweetener (go figure!). And figuring out how much to use is not easy.

I'd go with 1.5 to 2 pounds lactose for 10 gallons. It's not so sweet as much as it will take the edge off the sharpness from the fruit. Just be aware that your final gravity will end up quite high as a result, in the 1.020s, if not 1.030.

This is a bit of a swag, but common rule of thumb that I've heard is you need about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon for a good amount of flavor, or at least 2 pounds/gallon for just a hint of it. So you're looking at a buttload of fruit for 10 gallons. You might want to consider a smaller batch??