Brewer's Best Carbonation Drops?

Hi all,

I've seen posts about Brewer's Best conditioning tablets and Cooper's carbonation drops but never anything about Brewer's Best carbonation drops. Does anyone have experience with these? It says 1 per 12 oz bottle but it doesnt say if thats for medium carb, low carb, high carb etc.

Those are usually 1 for a medium carb is you wait the 4-6 weeks it needs

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fascination with carb drops/carb tabs, except to perhaps rescue a beer that you forgot to prime.

How hard is it to boil a few ounces of sugar in a cup of water for a minute or two, dump that into your bottling bucket, then rack the beer onto the sugar solution and bottle as normal?

It's cheaper than carb agents, it's rock solid reliable, and it gives you full control over the carbonation levels. Want high carb? Add a little more sugar. Want low carb? Add a little less sugar.

I mean no offense to the OP. I seriously just don't understand the attraction.

Carb caps come in handy when bottling from 1 or 2 gallon fermenters. If I'm bottling a full batch, boiling sugar and adding to the bottling bucket is much more reliable and inexpensive. But I keep a bag of carb tabs around for some of my small experiments. It's just easier and more accurate than trying to add sugar to 1 gallon of brew. RDWHAHB!

Pastorken said:

Carb caps come in handy when bottling from 1 or 2 gallon fermenters. If I'm bottling a full batch, boiling sugar and adding to the bottling bucket is much more reliable and inexpensive. But I keep a bag of carb tabs around for some of my small experiments. It's just easier and more accurate than trying to add sugar to 1 gallon of brew. RDWHAHB!

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Hey, whatever works for you. I will admit that I only brew five gallon batches.

Still, though, I'm the kind of guy that uses a priming sugar calulator and measures sugar to the gram to get the exact carbonation that I want. Measuing out an ounce and a half of sugar for a two gallon batch is just as easy as measuring out four ounces for a five gallon batch, and it assures me of getting perfect carbonation. Plus, I know that my process is consistent, so there's one less possible variable to have to account for.

I just don't get it.

But hey, I also don't get the allure of the I'M SO BITTER I'LL MELT YOUR FACE DIPA craze, either. I'm not saying that folks are wrong for liking either item, just that I can't seem to wrap my head around them.

homebrewdad said:

I just don't get it.

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Racking 6 bottles worth of beer and dropping carb tabs in them before proceeding to fill my keg is a lot easier them measuring out sugar and transferring to a bottling bucket just to fill a six pack. It may not be your thing, but yes plenty of us use them to fill some bottles.

If you need to carb a whole batch...YES use sugar and do the batch at once.

natelindner said:

Hi all,

I've seen posts about Brewer's Best conditioning tablets and Cooper's carbonation drops but never anything about Brewer's Best carbonation drops. Does anyone have experience with these? It says 1 per 12 oz bottle but it doesnt say if thats for medium carb, low carb, high carb etc.

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I believe the Brewers best ones are very similar if not the same as the COopers. I have used them all...Brewers' Muntons Coopers. I find them convenient when I don't need to carb to a particular style. Gives consistent results.

to each their own. I use tabs and priming sugar...depends on the brew.

My only caveat is that the Munton's "tiny" tabs where you use anywhere from 1-5 or so were horrible. Also, someone mentioned 4-6 weeks for carbonation...i have never needed more than 2 for carbing using teh tabs.....now flavor wise 4-6 weeks can be understandable.

homebrewdad said:

I mean no offense to the OP. I seriously just don't understand the attraction.

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I only bottled a gallon so it was much more efficient to use the carb drops. To each their own though. Cheers.

homebrewdad said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fascination with carb drops/carb tabs, except to perhaps rescue a beer that you forgot to prime.

How hard is it to boil a few ounces of sugar in a cup of water for a minute or two, dump that into your bottling bucket, then rack the beer onto the sugar solution and bottle as normal?

It's cheaper than carb agents, it's rock solid reliable, and it gives you full control over the carbonation levels. Want high carb? Add a little more sugar. Want low carb? Add a little less sugar.

I mean no offense to the OP. I seriously just don't understand the attraction.

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You forgot the part where you clean and sanitize the bucket and auto siphon
and any thing else you will be using. then clean and sanitize everything again after you are done

I use them on small one gallon competition batches on beer styles I don't particularly enjoy, and on test batches. Very easy and convenient to just pop a sugar ball in a bottle of finished beer and cap them off in a batch less than half a case in amount.

homebrewdad said:

Plus, I know that my process is consistent, so there's one less possible variable to have to account for.

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You forgot the variable about diluting your beer with the water used for priming.

....... I'm with you. I'm a cheapskate anyway. The drops do seem a pricey way to buy sugar, just a little easier than using a teaspoon and dry sugar to me.

Calder said:

You forgot the variable about diluting your beer with the water used for priming.

....... I'm with you. I'm a cheapskate anyway. The drops do seem a pricey way to buy sugar, just a little easier than using a teaspoon and dry sugar to me.

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2 cups of water in 5 gallons will not even change the gravity

I also like to bottle a 6-pack or so from each batch that I keg. Right now, I weigh out sugar precisely and make syrup, then squirt the syrup into each bottle with a dosing syringe. This is very labor intensive, but I refuse to pay for the carb drops. I'd like to find a mold of the correct size that I can make my own carb drops from sugar. Regular sugar cubes are a bit too big to prime a 12oz bottle.

cooldood said:

You forgot the part where you clean and sanitize the bucket and auto siphon
and any thing else you will be using. then clean and sanitize everything again after you are done

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You don't clean and sanitize your bottling bucket and auto siphon when you bottle with carb drops?

I think his point is that you don't have to use a bottling bucket at all when you use carb drops.

I typically keg directly out of my fermenter, and bottle a few bottles along the way. I use the bucket's spigot so I don't need an auto-siphon. There would be no way for me to mix in priming sugar without totally stirring up the yeast, not to mention I don't even want to put priming sugar in the 80% of the batch that goes in the keg. The only way to do this WITHOUT carb drops would be to have a precisely-measured bottling bucket, put a gallon of whatever of beer in it, measure the correct sugar for that volume of beer, all to prime a 6-pack or something. Or do what I do, and fill up X bottles, then use the syringe method to squirt in priming sugar into the bottles.

DogFace_Brewing said:

Racking 6 bottles worth of beer and dropping carb tabs in them before proceeding to fill my keg is a lot easier them measuring out sugar and transferring to a bottling bucket just to fill a six pack. It may not be your thing, but yes plenty of us use them to fill some bottles.

If you need to carb a whole batch...YES use sugar and do the batch at once.

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+1.

I've been thinking about picking up a bag of carb tabs (which I've never had any use for previously) for this very purpose.

I tried using some carb pills years ago, Muntons brand I think.
They worked good at carbing the beer but left little white floating globules in the bottle, which was not so good.

AP

APendejo said:

I tried using some carb pills years ago, Muntons brand I think.
They worked good at carbing the beer but left little white floating globules in the bottle, which was not so good.

AP

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Honestly Coopers are the best regarding less floating junk...just no variation on carb level since the drops are larger and you just add one for a 12oz bottle

I tried BB Conditioning tabs to try to have consistent carbonation through all bottles, and now I have 5 gallons of flat beer. Does anyone recommened a certain type of conditioning / carbonation tablets to use to try to rescue my beer? Thanks.

homebrewdad said:

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fascination with carb drops/carb tabs, except to perhaps rescue a beer that you forgot to prime.

How hard is it to boil a few ounces of sugar in a cup of water for a minute or two, dump that into your bottling bucket, then rack the beer onto the sugar solution and bottle as normal?

It's cheaper than carb agents, it's rock solid reliable, and it gives you full control over the carbonation levels. Want high carb? Add a little more sugar. Want low carb? Add a little less sugar.

I mean no offense to the OP. I seriously just don't understand the attraction.

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Can you tell me how much sugar for 5 gal. of cider. I'm thinking 2/3 cup. Thanks!!!

Can anyone tell me how much cane sugar to use for carbonation on 5 gallons of cider. Just give me thr amount in cups, i don't have a scale. I'm thinking about 2/3 cup.

kennyp1114 said:

Can anyone tell me how much cane sugar to use for carbonation on 5 gallons of cider. Just give me thr amount in cups, i don't have a scale. I'm thinking about 2/3 cup.

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5 ounces dry volume measure of table sugar. An alternative is to use half a pint of apple juice.,