2 carb drops or 2 sugar cubes in the 500ml Euro Coopers PET bottle?

[TonyD13]

Hi all,

I'm now brewing a bog standard Coopers Canadian Blonde using the standard kit and BE1 after my first three brews, all of which were Wheat Beers.

For the Wheat Beers I used one and a half carb drops in the 500ml PET bottles and a few bottles with a single sugar cube. But I found them lacking in fizz.

Thinking of upping the carb drops/sugar cubes to 2 in each bottle for the Canadian Blonde.

Does anyone prime at the rate of 2 drops/cubes per 500ml bottle and have you suffered any drama with bursting bottles as a result?

[Hairy]

I use one sugar cube in a 740ml bottle. The cubes I use are 4.5g which equates to priming at 6g per litre.

 

If your sugar cubes are the same weight then two in a 500ml bottle will equate to 18g per litre. That is extremely fizzy.

 

The drops are 3.5g (I think) so that is still 14g per litre.

 

You would be better off bulk priming and working out your priming amount exactly to reach your desired carbonation level.

[Beeblebrox]

I use 2 drops in 740ml bottles (which is what is recommended on the carb drop pack), and find it just about right, I think you could get away with using 2 drops in 500ml and it would be just a little more fizzy than usual, whereas you may find one drop will be a bit flat; that said it's really a matter of personal preference.

It seems 500ml is right between the volume you'd use one or two drops for, so if you wanted to play it safe you may be best to just stick with the 1 1/2 drops you've done before.

 

From what Hairy says sugar cubes seem to be midway between using 1-2 drops, so maybe if using cubes just one per bottle, however the carb drops are custom made for home brewing so you may get more or less bang for you buck with sugar cubes.

 

I haven't used table sugar for brewing, even secondary ferment for over a decade, so not sure of the difference you'd get so far as fermentation.

You could as Hairy said bulk prime, but that's really up to you.

 

Having just done some basic maths, according to the packaging, Coopers carb drops each add up to about 3.125g per drop, so it will only really be a problem if you're using glass bottles - which may explode if overcarbed, but I suspect using 2 carb drops may not be enough to make bottle bombs, but am sure someone else will have a better idea what the crucial amount of sugar is to blow your bottles up.

 

If using PET and worried you may have overdone it, you can always slightly open the screw top lid to let any excess gas escape during secondary fermentation.

 

BTW my last three batches have been the Canadian Blonde, and I find it generally is a little less gassy than some other brews, so it may just be the way that style brews.

Home brew is generally not as gassy as mass produced beer, unless you have a keg system to gas it up, rather than doing secondary fermentation in the bottle.