Coopers Carbonation Drops question

So i am going to be bottling my first home brew in a couple days. It is a nut brown ale extract kit from northern brewer. My question is if i put one drop in each 12oz bottle, will this give me enough carbonation for this beer. I read on a review of this kit on northern brewer that the carbonation drops produced virtually no head on the beer and didn't carbonate it good. I want it to be well carbonated with a nice half inch to inch head if its possible. The OG gravity is 1044 and the FG has remained the same for a couple days.

 

That's what the instructions say, and I certainly wouldn't add two. I've never had much luck with the carbonation drops and just use corn or table sugar instead. YMMV.

 

I use the Cooper carb drops on almost all of my beers (30+ batches) and they work great -- just have to be patient and give them time just like normal bottling! If you want to play around with the amount of carbonation, you can try Munton's carb tabs - think you can use between 3-5 tabs to alter the amount of CO2. There also made with dextrose, dme and heading powder instead of just sugar for the carb drops.

 

Cooper's says to use one tab for 330ml-350ml bottles. That 12 ouncers,basically. 2 tabs for 740-750ml bottles (the PET bottles in the Coopers make your own beer kit). Those are about 24 ounces. I used those on my 1st batch going in the fridge tomorrow for the 4th week. Half anyway,since 30 of the PET bottles equals about 60 12 ounce bottles.

 

I've used them in the past as well with great success. I find 1 drop per 12oz bottle to be more than adequate, about equal to (1 tsp of table sugar) per bottle.

After capping I tend to shake the bottles a little facilitate dissolving of the drop but it will dissolve otherwise in time.

My beers all had decent head with Coopers carb drops.

 

^^^Good to hear. I'll be trying some of my 1st next weekend. It seems to me the Cooper's guy also said a rounded tsp equals about 6g. IDK if the Aussie tsp is dif from ours,though?...

 

The large Cooper's PET bottles are 740ml, exactly 25oz.

Yes, use only one in a 12oz bottle. Carb drops are nice and I've used them a number of times but I'm switching to bulk priming since it's much easier to adjust the priming sugar amounts for different sized bottles and for different desired CO volume levels. Plus, it's one less chance of contamination. I'm sure most don't sanitize their hands or wash with antibacterial soap prior to handling the drops. The risk is really small, but it's still there.


Rev.

 

What precautions would you take if you are only using part of the package and saving the rest? I'm worried about contamination.

 

I keg my beer but often use the drops to bottle part of a batch.

I seal up the original package with a binder clip, then store it in an air tight container (like you would use around the kitchen for sugar, flour, etc.). I'm mostly aiming to keep out any moisture.

 

Ditto!

Any partial packs I'll fold the bag over, put a clip on it and throw it in the freezer to keep from picking up moisture.

 

I roll the bag up,& put it in a zip lock bag,burping out as much air as I can. Then stash it with my other supplies. Speaking of which,my shipment from Midwest just got here at 11:40am. Now we can get a double brew day going!

 

I used 6 today, making sure not to touch the inside of the bag. I then put the bag in a ziplock and put it in the fridge.

 

I use the carb drops quite often, and just one of them gives the beer the perfect carbonation.

 

I use them when I want to bottle a couple and keg the rest. Good results in the past.

 

I used them on the wheat beer in my sig. Very nice head on them. I'll be using them again in the future!