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Is Erythritol acid or alkaline and what is it's pH compared to brown sugar?

In many baking recipes, baking soda is added together with acidic ingredients, such as brown sugar.

Also, this way, the possibly metallic taste of baking soda is neutralized.

Does this applies to Erythritol ? Edit: Sugar alcohols generally are not measured with pH directly, but with pKa indirectly. So in a nutshell, I'd like to know if it would behave more like an acid or as alkaline. For example 180g pure Erythritol (pka 13.903@18degreeC), in 100 ml H2O with 1.2g baking soda.

Some people bake with it and baking soda, some with baking powder (with the rest of ingredients being about the same). In the end it's hard to know which one will give better cooking yield and flavor(based on how it reacts with baking soda) without wasting ingredients... please help!

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  • based on this, it seems that the pKa( tldr: ph equivalent) is around 13, which makes me believe it is slightly alkaline. In that case i'm not sure if using baking powder instead is the answer, as what I'm going for is chocolate chip cookies, and would NOT want them to be "cakey". pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/…
    – Joao
    Feb 28, 2020 at 21:54
  • Your question makes no sense. Erythritol is a solid at room tempreature. If it has a solution with free ions (which I am not sure about), you have to specify the solution concentration for whose pH you are asking.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Feb 28, 2020 at 22:06
  • Hi thanks for your reply. I'm not an expert in chemistry, or food science, so if posible walk me through this. You may make assumptions or use reasonable examples. I use commercially available food grade Erythritol. I don't know if there is any variation among brands. I would assume it's 100% Erythritol. I use 180g Erythritol, 1 egg 113g butter(or oil), 50 egg(might want to assume it's water?). Finally cookies made with brown sugar add .25g of baking soda, but maybe something else would be better with Erythritol ?
    – Joao
    Feb 28, 2020 at 23:34
  • Perhaps, For example purposes one could assume 100g Erythritol with 100g water solution ? (maybe the link attached can provide some extra info?) pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/…
    – Joao
    Feb 28, 2020 at 23:41

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As a 4 carbon sugar alcohol, erythritol lacks both strongly acid and strongly basic groups. pH of a 1 molar solution will run around 7. It is not going to affect the pH of a solution when you add erythritol. It will affect osmolarity, and water activity but those are different properties.

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