How to use carbonation drops for brewing beer and cider

Using carbonation drops for secondary fermentation in beer brewing

A common way to bottle beer or cider is to add sugar to each bottle individually using a spoon or by batch priming.

That can be messy or take a bit of time.

For faster bottling times, many brewers use carbonation drops to make bottling quick and error-free.

Once the beers have been sealed with a drop safely inside, the process of secondary fermentation begins as the yeast eats the sugar in the carbonation drops.

Too easy!

You may have heard of Coopers Carbonation Drops?

They are pretty well known and a reliable brand. Mangrove Jacks drops are also pretty popular.

What are the ingredients of carbonation drops?

Sugar.

That's it, sucrose is the only ingredient.

So there is no difference between a carbonation drop and sugar.

The reason for using them is simply for ease of use.

You can try other alternative methods of adding sugar to the beer - such as 'priming' the whole batch of beer or by adding sugar to each bottle using a funnel or spoon.

That can be a bit messy though!

So, you should use carbonation drops if you want an easy bottling process and wish to save some time and keep things nice and clean.

Using drops also allows you to ensure that each bottle is given the same sugar dosage - this will allow for a consistent brew and also will help prevent 'gushers' from occurring (more on avoiding beer gushers later on).

Because the drops are just simple sugar and used at low volumes, they leave no 'off-tastes' in your beer. 

So how do you use carbonation drops? 

It's actually probably the easiest part of making beer!

Once you have added the beer to your sanitized bottles, all you need to do is literally drop a carbonation drop into the bottle.

Instantly, you are done. Easiest instructions you will follow all week!

You then cap the bottle so that carbonation can commence and the CO2 becomes trapped in the bottle.

You might now be thinking:

How many carbonation drops do I add to each bottle? 

It depends on how big the bottles are. 

It's not an exact piece of maths but here are the standard practices:

• 1 drop for a beer bottle that is around 350 to 375 mls or 12 OZ. Even 500 mls will cover you
• 2 drops for a 750 mls bottle (your standard crate size bottle) or 25 OZ but you are probably pushing the limits.
• If you're doing anything bigger like a litre, you may wish to consider 2 and a half drops or possibly 3 but you're risking over sugaring your beer and this may cause beer gushers.
• Another rough rule of thumb is one drop for one pint which is possibly on the light side if an Imperial pint equals 540 mls but prob OK for an American pint of 473 mls.

Once you have added the drops, give them a chance to dissolve. When they've had long enough after capping, give the bottle a firm shake to ensure each drop has dissolved completely.

Actually, you really shouldn't have any problems with drops dissolving so you can feel free to skip this step.

If you have added sugar using a spoon or funnel, you should definitely shake the bottle so any sugar stuck inside the bottleneck gets into the beer.

Do I need to sterilize carbonation drops?

No, you do not need to take such a step.

If you take the drops straight from a freshly opened packet and use clean hands, you should be absolutely fine.

No one ever sterilizes their sugar when brewing so we don't see any reason to do this. 

Not sure how you would either, maybe dissolve them in boiling water? ... and if so you may as well just use ordinary sugar.

The reality is I have a bag of sugar that I keep in my brewing shed. It's in a plastic container but it's manky - I've never had any issues with using sugar that's not sterilised. You just don't need to do it. 

Do different beer styles affect my use of drops?

Ales generally need less sugar than lagers however we really don't think you should worry too much about it when you are at a beginner stage of home brewing.

When you are more experienced and understand what sugar content suits your beer, you'll probably want to think about batch priming more so you can be more targeted with your sugar content.

Though to stay on target, do not over carbonate - using one drop per bottle is a good way to avoid this issue. Why waste your brewing efforts by spilling beer?

How long do carbonation drops take to work / carbonate?

The same amount of time as simply adding sugar does!

Basically, carbonation will take place fairly quickly, a matter of days.

A good length of time is then needed to let your beer condition properly and we recommend an absolute minimum of 2 weeks for that (we won't begrudge you a taste tester one though eh?).

At three weeks your beer should be beginning to become quite drinkable, but as usual, we suggest you wait till that fifth week if you can be so patient.

A wee bit of advice, when you do you first taste, lower your expectations and secondly, make sure you have chilled your bottle in a fridge over night. The lower temperature can reduce excessive fizz when you open the bottle. 

Don't believe me? 

Open a warm brew that's had a little too much sugar added...

Can I use carbonation tablets instead of drops? 

You can also use 'carbonation tablets' or (conditioning tablets) for bottling which is a different way to carbonation glory.

The tablets usually contain tablets contain dextrose, dry malt extract and heading powder which is clearly different from using sugar for fermentation.

Carbonation tablets work in the same way as sugar in that the more you use, the more carbonation occurs.

In that sense, they are an equivalent alternative product but given the ingredients, they will add more flavour and body to your beer.

This is important to keep in mind as some beers are better with more bubbles (lager) and others are more enjoyable to drink when they have less (heavy ales, bocks etc). The usage is 3, 4 or 5 tablets per 12 ounce bottle (350 mls) for low, medium or high carbonation.

Popular brands are Muntons' 'Carbtabs' and Brewer's Best Conditioning Tablets.

Remember that after carbonating your beer, it's essential that you store the bottles properly so that optimal conditioning can occur.

Is priming sugar the same as brewing sugar?

Yes, they are! Priming sugar and corn sugar are both simply dextrose.

Tips and tricks for when using carbonation drops:

• You can use drops to carbonate apple cider. The measurements are the same. Just as with beer, be wary of over carbonating the cider. 
• Once you have added the drops and bottled the beer, it will take about 7 days to condition. This is the bare minimum before which you can drink your beer. The patient beer brewer should wait about 3 weeks before sampling their brew. Leaving your beer in a dark, cool place will help too.
• Beware of over priming your beer. If you add too much sugar, too much CO2 will be produced by the yeast and it will have nowhere to escape. It will escape in the form of a 'gusher' when you open your beer and it will gush out the next of the bottle like a geyser and go bloody everywhere - and ruin that beer experience you were about to enjoy!
• Different temperatures will affect the carbonation process as well (the yeast generally enjoys a warmer temperature) - so if you are questioning whether the drops didn't produce enough CO2, bear in mind there are other factors at play.
• If you do choose to not use drops and just wish to add granulated sugar to the bottle, we recommend the use of an ordinary kitchen funnel as it speeds things up and helps reduce the mess of sugar going everywhere. Get your measurements correct! You can always try to batch prime - we find this method quite effective.
• We once tried using jelly beans as a substitute for carbonation drops. The results were quite interesting! Basically, you can use any form of sugar lollies for carbonating beer - as long as it fits down the neck of the beer bottle you'll be right! Flavours may vary though...
• We've used Mangrove Jack's drops many times and had no problems so are very happy to recommend their use.
• 60 carbonation drops, will be enough drops for one 23 litre brew (i.e. up to that 'line' on a plastic drum.
• You can use carbonation drops with your ginger beer as well! And though we've never tried it, maybe your hard seltzer. 
• If you are buying drops online, say Coopers Drops from Amazon, we suggest you order at least a couple of packets - that way the cost of delivery becomes more effective by price per unit.
• You can use Soda Stream machine device to carbonate your beer. Just be careful how you go about it. 

What is the science behind carbonation drops for secondary fermentation?

The science behind carbonation drops is based on the concept of priming sugar. During secondary fermentation, yeast consumes the sugar added to the beer, producing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. This carbon dioxide is then dissolved in the beer, creating carbonation.

The science behind carbonation drops is relatively simple. Each pellet contains a precise amount of sugar that is carefully calibrated to produce a specific level of carbonation. As the yeast consumes the sugar, it produces a known amount of carbon dioxide, which is then dissolved in the beer. 

The result is a beer that is carbonated to a specific level, which can be adjusted by varying the amount of sugar added.

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Coopers Lager beer kit review - any good?

If you were forced on threat of being made to drink warm parsnip wine* to name one beer brewing kit brand, I think that Coopers would probably be the first one to come to many brewers minds. 

Even non-brewers will probably have heard of Coopers as the kit that their 'dad made a few brews with it back in the day'.

While I’ve been giving the Williams Warns and Black Rock kits a go of late, a chance find of a Coopers Lager while doing the supermarket shopping has led us to brew one of their lagers.

A bit of google research shows us Coopers is a large Australian owned brewery known for great sparkling ales and their original pale ale. They are also almost synonymous with home brewing and their home microbrewing kits are very popular.

So this extract kit we are brewing comes with a good reputation for quality and I'm are going to assume a great taste!

So is there anything special I need to know about brewing a lager from a kit?

There’s a general rule of home brewing that’s often stated as an absolute so take this with a great 'grain of salt' when I say that it’s easy to make an ale than a larger.

Or perhaps more accurately stated, it is easier to hide anything brewing mistakes with an ale than a larger. This is largely due to the strength of the beer's flavours.

The first thing to consider is that the word lager is derived from a German word, lagern. It means ‘to store’. This should be a strong clue on how to make a good lager – they were originally stored for a long period in cold caves – and thus the lagering process was born as storing beer properly is really important.

So here's your instructions:

Patience is an absolutely needed virtue here. 

Due to lager yeasts operating best at lower temperatures, they actually ferment the beer at a lower rate than compared to ales which often ferment at higher temperatures.

This can mean that to get a lager brewed from a kit to be at its best for drinking, you may need to let it ‘lager’ for more weeks than you normally let an ale sit. So hide it in a dark corner of the garden shed.

And maybe brewing it during winter.

I digress. 

While I will be using the yeast that comes with a Cooper’s kit, when making a lager one could always use a yeast that is a true lager yeast. If you're feeling adventurous, you might want to order the Lager YeastWL833 - it's a popular yeast for lager brewing.

There’s plenty of more things to think about brewing lagers but I need to move on.

So to the actual preparation of the Coopers Lager kit

To get the true taste and worth of this extract kit, I'm not adding any extra flavours and we used dextrose only. No beer enhancer and no additional hops were added.

This might be somewhat of a mistake but for once I felt the need to try the kit on its own merits where the true flavours and characteristics of the beer wort alone come out to play.

This is a standard brew. I'm are not doing anything special and I'm are basically following the instructions on the can. Not that you necessarily must do this.

As usual, I sanitised the heck out of our fermenter drum to make sure that no sneaky microbes were lurking. First up we added one KG of dextrose to one litre of freshly boiled water and made sure it was mixed well – easily enough to do when the water is that hot!

I then added the contents of the kit.

Before I actually poured the malty goodness into the fermenter as well, I boiled the kettle. I then added the kit’s contents. I then added the boiled water into the can nearly all the way to the top. This way the extract would melt and I would be able to get all of it out from the can. 

Be careful though, the can will get very hot so I like to transfer it to the fermenter with a tea towel.

I then added 23 or so litres of water from the garden hose. This cools the wort to the point where the yeast has an environment to do its thing. If I added the yeast to the wort without the cool water, it would probably die.

Speaking of yeast, I should mention that before I did anything during this brew, I added it to a glass of warm water to activate it. The theory is that doing so gives the yeast more of a chance to compete with the wort itself. 

If that makes any sense.

Then I put the lid on the fermenter and placed it in the man cave covered in several sheets.

And then I waited.

I waited for 10 days which is possibly a little longer brewing time than needed and then I bottled.

And then I waited three weeks.

Remember above when I mentioned patience? You need to have GNR's Patience level of patience. 

This felt like an eternity but I had some bohemian pilsners to keep my throat wet so it wasn’t such a hardship….

So what’s the verdict on my Cooper’s lager?

I made a decent homebrew beer! 

This was a no nonsense brew. No hops, no beer enhancer.

To my mind, this meant I got to get to try the true characteristics of the beer.

Featuring a nice clear gold colour, it tasted like a standard beer. 

It had an OK head but fairly little body but no worse than some other beers I have made without enhancer (Coopers do their own enhancer if you're in the market for some). While this was not an amazing brew, I have produced a genuinely good drinking beer, if not one that would benefit from a good body.

This will be best served quite chilled and to that end, would be quite nice to drink at the end of a long hot day. 

By my reckoning, the beer was a shade over 4 percent alcohol by volume.

I figure if you were going to add hops you would not going wrong with a combination of both Moteuka and Saaz hops. (speaking of Saaz, check out my Riwika hops and lager experiment)

Grab a kit from Amazon today.

Update:

I also have now taken a couple of turns with the Coopers Pale Ale kits. I found they are pretty basic kits. To get the best out of them you definitely need to use an enhancer and the kit strongly benefits from the use of hops. I found the Pale Ales take a while to be drinkable and from 4 weeks on after conditioning, they were fine to drink when served cold.

Overall, I would not recommend brewing with a Coopers Pale Ale kit - unless you want 'cheap beer'.  

* Having actually tasted parsnip wine, I can confirm it to be one of the most horrid liquids in existence. 

2 comments beer kit review, coopers, how to brew with a beer kit, lager, micro brewing, pale ale

⇒ Use 'beer enhancer' to make better tasting homebrew

Using beer enhancer to make better homebrew beer

The thing about beer is that is that there’s so much variety in style and taste but there is one thing they all have in common: 

The so-called ‘mouth feel’ which makes a beer feel like it has 'body'. 

Like how a good pint of Guinness feels. 

Like a creamy but solid breakfast. 

If you simply brewed malt with sugar you will get a beer but your beer’s mouthfeel will be closer to feeling like water. Which is just wrong, as a full-bodied beer enhances the drinking experience!

To get an improved mouthfeel, many beer brewers use an ‘enhancer’ to do exactly what it says it will do – enhance the beer by giving it greater body and mouthfeel.

Beer enhancers are made of basic ingredients, being a mix of fermentable and non-fermentable. They usually contain a mix of dextrose and maltodextrin.

Such beer enhancers work the dextrose serving as the food for the yeast and are thus used in the fermentation process. 

The maltodextrin does not ferment and thus forms part of the beer solution giving the beer mouthfeel and a true sense of body. It also has the benefit of allowing the poured beer to have a good head of foam and to retain it. 

I have no idea how the science of this part works!

The combination of dextrose and maltodextrin suits the lighter style beers such as pilsner, draught, and lagers.

If you are brewing an ale or a beer where you desire a full, maltier flavor an enhancer that also has an element of light dry malt extract will be what you need.

This is often simply referred to as DME.

Some beer enhancers also have hops added to match the kind of beer style so if you are ordering from an online store, check that the particular enhancer's hops matches the kind of beer you are trying to make. 

'Branded' beer enhancers

The Australian beer making company, Coopers, offer two well-known beer enhancers to help achieve these goals. 

They are simply known as Brew Enhancer 1 and Brew Enhancer 2. 

What is the difference between enhancer one and two? 

The difference between the two is one suits a lager, the other ales. 

You can imagine the salty old brewer that came up with those very telling names! 

Coopers include the enhancers with their beer kits but you can buy them separately too. I've often seen them in supermarkets for a reasonable price (and reviewed them!) Side note - never do a Coopers Lager Kit without an enhancer, I have and trust me the results are rubbish. 

The result was the beer having very little body and the flavor could have been stronger. 

Which is what you expect me to report in an article like this eh?

There are some other popular enhancer brands out there too. Muntons, Young's and Copper Tun are well known and trusted by many brewers.

Using spraymalt to add body to beer

You may have also heard the word 'spraymalt'. It can be used as an alternative to standard beer enhancer. 

Spraymalt is a specially prepared kind of DME. Drying is achieved by the use of a spraydrier, a process which produces particularly uniform powders both in terms of particle size and flavor. 

This means a spraymalt beer will be less dry than beers that simply use sugar. Or you can add spraymalt in addition to the sugar for more effect on the taste or your beer.

How to make your own beer enhancer

Of course, you do not need to buy brew enhancer, you can make your own! 

If you going to make your own enhancer, here’s some ingredient ratios which you could use as a guide: 

Beer style	Dextrose	Maltodextrin	DME
Light Beer	60%	40%	0%
Ale, more malty beer	50%	25%	25%

The quantity to make is is 1Kg per 23 litre brew (which is a standard amount for a fermenter drum).

The beauty of the dextrose is that it is apparently a more favored food of the yeast when compared to ordinary sucrose sugar and so fermentation will commence more quickly. 

Whether that makes a difference, I don't know however using too much sugar gives the beer too much a citrus flavor which can be off-putting.

Many beer supply shops will carry the ingredients you need. That way you can get the advantage of buying in bulk so to reduce your brewing costs.

Adding beer enhancer will likely increase the alcohol production of the yeast as well! 

When do I add beer enhancer?

When you are preparing your wort - I do it first and then add the malt extract as I think it all dissolves better in that order. You can add your hops at the same time.

Are beer enhancers cost effective per batch brew?

Adding a brew enhancer to your brew does add to the cost per glass somewhat, however, given that enhancers actually really do work (I use them every time I brew), it's my view and that of thousands of other home brewers, that the taste and body improvements are very worth it. 

If your enhancer costs 8 dollars and you make 23 liters, that’s only 35 cents extra per liter. 

Naturally, the mileage may vary depending on what brand and at what price you’ve purchased!

If you’re not interested in making your own enhancer but think brand name enhancers are too expensive, there is a happy medium. 

Many beer shop suppliers will do the mixing for you and sell you a 1Kg bag of no frills beer enhancer.

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