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Trying to save some money on buying Splenda packets by buying sucralose powder and mixing with water. This works great and is waaaay cheaper - 10x cheaper than buying the packets!

However, after two weeks, I noticed my solution, which I keep in an eye-dropper bottle, developed fungus floaties and so I had to pour the contents of the bottle down the drain.

Can anyone recommend a method of preventing things from growing inside my solution? Is there something people use for this sort of issue? Some kind of available food preservative? Obviously, whatever the solution turns out to be, it has to be safe for human consumption.

Thanks in advance for your help.

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  • Don't they sell liquid splenda or am I missing the point? – Catija♦ May 22 '15 at 18:11
  • Yes, and the cost of the liquid Splenda isn't significantly cheaper than the packets. Bulk sucralose is significantly less expensive. The situation though is no longer about price for me though - I now have a bag of sucralose powder, and I would like to use it somehow - if I bought liquid splenda, I would have to throw away the powder. – Greg Sherman May 22 '15 at 18:14
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    Can you simply make smaller batches? If one batch lasts so long, perhaps you should make less at a time... Do you boil the water before you add the splenda? I'm just throwing ideas out there. And if it's that cheap and you're just trying to get rid of it, couldn't you just trash it after a week or so? – Catija♦ May 22 '15 at 18:16
  • The batches I make are small to begin with - 30ml - that's about an ounce of water. I guess I could consider making them smaller, but that's already pretty tiny. I haven't boiled water but I did use distilled water from a bottle to make the batch. And no, I'm not trying to get rid of it - I'd like find a way to not have fungus grow if possible. – Greg Sherman May 22 '15 at 18:30
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    Instead of dissolving the powder in water, just invest in a teeny-tiny measuring spoon. Then you can use it just like you'd use sugar, only much less of it. – Marti May 22 '15 at 20:25
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The easiest and best solution for the problem is to not dissolve it into water in the first place. Powdered sweetener keeps indefinitely. Dissolved sweetener falls smack in the middle of FAT TOM, so you have converted a shelf stable food into an unstable one.

Assuming that you want to keep it at room temperature, there is not that much you can do. You can reduce the water, but I don't know enough about the solubility of sucralose, it is possible that it is still susceptible to mold at the saturation point, just like sugar.

You could try acidifying it sufficiently to stop the mold from growing. But then it will taste much less sweet, so you will have to add a much larger amount to your drink, several time the amount you normally use. Alternatively, you can acidify it less and use sodium benzoate as a preservative. It is normally used for industrially produced food, so I cannot suggest the correct ratios of acid to sucralose to sodium benzoate. But note that simply mixing them in any old way won't give you a safe product, you may need industrial recipes for correct usage.

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    If he uses so little (a drop or two), could he dissolve it in alcohol? For example, some high-alcohol vodka? It'd be similar to a flavorless extract? – Catija♦ May 23 '15 at 7:27
  • That's an interesting thought Catija, thank you! – Greg Sherman May 24 '15 at 4:57
  • I had an off-line suggestion to add a little bit of silver to the bottle. Apparently silver has strong anti-microbial properties. I'm trying this now. – Greg Sherman May 27 '15 at 3:58

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