I've been home brewing for several years now. I started with extract brewing, then went all-grain. I've used a number of methods for carbonation during that time.
Table sugar added into the bottle before filling and capping: This is relatively inexpensive and easy, but can be a little messy. Some say you get off-flavors from this, but I've never noticed it. It requires you to figure out the right amount of sugar for the amount of beer you're bottling and the carbonation level you want, but it's a decent solution in my experience.
Corn sugar dissolved in boiling water, cooled, and added to the bottling bucket: This is probably the most common method used, and possibly the least expensive. It yields the best control over the amount of carbonation since you calculate and measure out the sugar based on the desired carbonation level and batch size. It's not as easy as the table sugar method, but not exponentially more difficult. Most home brewers swear by it. I've gotten good results from it as long as the wort whirlpools around when I transfer it to the bottling bucket (and thus mixes the sugar in well). In place of corn sugar, I've also used candi syrup successfully for this.
Carbonation drops like these: You add one of these to a small bottle or two to a bomber sized bottle. No boiling, no measuring, and you know you're getting a consistent amount of sugar per bottle. The down-side is that you can't control the precise level of carbonation as you can with the other two methods above. You get the amount of carbonation the drop provides - no more, no less. This can be too much for some styles and not enough for others (like the Belgian Tripel, for example).
In my experience, all three methods (and their variations like using maple syrup in place of corn sugar) all work. Executed correctly, they provide the sugar you need for the yeast to carbonate your brew. If I'm short on time, I will use the carbonation drops because they're quick and easy. Tear open the package, drop one or two in a bottle, fill it, cap it, and you're done. If I want a precise carbonation level, I'll calculate the amount of corn sugar (or other sugar) I need, boil it up, cool it down, and add it to the bucket. That will get me a style-perfect level of carbonation. If I'm out of corn sugar and carbonation drops, I'll use a special measuring spoon I have and use table sugar.
I've never experienced any off-flavors as a result of using any of the above methods.
The drops in my experience will fully dissolve in the bottle and leave behind no residue. They provide an average level of carbonation provided your yeast is healthy and the bottle caps seal properly. For some styles, like the Tripel, I'll sometimes add an extra drop per bottle. You just have to be careful in these situations to make sure you use thick bottles. (The kind that Gulden Draak, Trappistes Rochefort 10, and other Belgian beers are packaged in have proven strong enough in my experience.)
I've used these Coopers drops, Mangrove Jack drops, Brewer's Friend drops, and others. All of them seems to be equally good. The Brewer's Friend drops seemed to stick together inside the container really badly, which made using them a pain in the backside and resulted in irregular shapes (and probably uneven carbonation). The Coopers and Mangrove Jack drops didn't stick together and seemed to work well.
Here's a "pro tip" for those new to home brewing. Always assume that you're going to have a bottle which leaks or explodes. (You probably won't, but making this assumption will save you from unpleasantness later.) When you finish bottling a batch of beer, put the bottles inside a sealed beverage cooler or plastic bin with a locking lid. Let them condition inside this container until they're ready to drink. If something goes wrong and one or more bottles explode or leak on you, the mess will be contained within the cooler or bin. That's a lot better than having glass and sticky beer sprayed across a room in your home or apartment. (So far in 25+ batches I've not had a beer explode, but I did have a bottle of apple wine explode into shards. Fortunately it was a mess inside the plastic bin but that was a relatively easy clean-up.)
I brewed a beer at a local brew on premises place and the amount of priming sugar they suggested and added to my bottling bucket was definitely not what the beer needed (a Hoegaarden clone). After letting it carbonate on its own for two weeks the beer was quite flat. I only had two options at this point and that was to either toss the batch out or try to corbonate it a little more. So I opened each bottle, popped in a tablet, recapped everyone one them. Waited another two weeks for the tablet to fully dissolve and carbonate. Now the beer tastes exactly like it should have the first time. So no need to toss the whole batch (as it was flat), just add a tablet put it away for a little while and you're good to go. Saved my batch, excellent product!!!
So these are a tad bit expensive for what they are (sugar basically), BUT, they do work really well. They also seem to be able to reduce a step- I go siphon straight from bucket to the bottles- using the auto fill to stop between the bottles to get the right height. Then I drop one tab in each one, and cap. 1 per 12 oz does the trick. If you want more or less obviously, this gives you no adjustment capability. You could of course find other ways (dissolve and mix into bottling bucket, fill each bottle with pre measured sugar, etc), but this is certainly convenient. One pack will do about 10 gallons of beer.
I make lots of small batches of brew (usually one gallon batches). I'm not very good at calculating how much priming sugar I need, and also don't know exactly how many bottles each batch will yield. These drops solve my problems.
If you use these drops, then be patient. In my experience, they take a lot longer than two weeks to carbonate beer. I keep my bottles at room temperature, usually between 64-68 degrees. My bottles take at least one month to carbonate. My hunch is that the drops take a long time to dissolve.
I prefer my beers to have high carbonation. These drops work great with 12-ounce bottles. I find that my 16-ounce bottles are under-carbonated when using one drop.
I find these drops to be reliable and convenient. I'll continue to use them; they just take a bit longer than other methods.
When you bottle 5 gallons of beer, the last thing you want to do is measure sugar for each 12 oz bottle one. These eliminate the need to do that. You just put a drop in the bottle and cap it, wait a few weeks and you are good to go. They carbonate just as well as priming sugar but same me a ton of time, frustration and mess.
Feature Product
- Each package contains 60 carbonation drops
- Makes bottling time easy
- Each package will carbonation up to 6 gallons of homebrew
Description
The coopers carbonation drops make bottling time easy. These drops are specially formulated for carbonating your beer and will leave no off flavors in your beer. These drops are perfect for bottling your next batch of home brew. These carbonation drops are a must have for every home-brewer.
Easy to use. Just drop appropriate number of sugar "cubes" into bottles. No mess, no fuss. Not much else to add, but the review must contains at least 20 words.
I used these for my very first time Brewing beer and they worked fine. But from now on I'm going to use corn sugar and mix it into my wort during the prime / bottling phase. I believe that doing it this way is simpler and probably cheaper too.
These are a must for homebrewers that bottle beers. Saves me so much time and no mess from pouring sugar into bottles. I know that some just make a suger mixture and pour it into whole batch but I never felt comfortable doing that so i would use funnel and spoon and add sugar to each bottle. These were life saver... now i keg my beer so dont really need anymore.
I like using these with the Mr. Beer 2Gallon kits for bottling, since I don't use a bottling bucket to mix in sugar. With a 5 gallon batch, I use a bottling bucket and priming sugar instead. One drop in a 16oz bottle seems to do the trick or 2 drops in the 750ml plastic bottles that come with the MR. Beer kit.
Used these before in a Mr. Beer kit. As simple as they come. There is a slight weight difference between drops, and if they're chipped/broken you might see some difference in carbonation. As it stands though, they're a very fast and reliable method of getting that last bit of carbonation out of your brew.
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