Carbonation drops

[GhostShip]

My first brew went into a PB and I didn't bother to attach the CO2 bulb that came with the starter kit. The beer has poured just fine using gravity alone, but I must admit, I do like a few bubbles in my beer (though not too fizzy). Though the beer is very nice, there is no carbonation to speak of.

Presumably, if I did attach the CO2 bulb to the barrel, I'd get some fizz?

I want to bottle the next brew and was wondering about carbonation drops. It's adding cost to the brew, but I can see how it might give more consistent results from bottle-to-bottle.

Would carbonation drops give me a bit more fizz compared to sugar, or are they really one and the same thing?

I just wondered what people's experiences were with drops and how highly they would recommend them (if at all). Am I asking too much to see some bubbles in my home brew?

 

[chewie]

There just an expensive form of sugar, batch prime the lot before bottling or individually bottle prime with table sugar will do the exact same thing, check with a priming calculator how much you need for the level of fizz that you want, a teaspoon will give you somewhere between 4-6g of sugar, someone mentioned recently that a sugar cube is about 4g, batch priming requires adding boiling water to the amount of sugar you need for the amount of beer you want to carbonate and fully mixing it in. Up to you what way to go, i prefer bottle priming as you can add the exact amount you need knowing that you get 100% consistency though it is a bit more time consuming.

 

[terrym]

Find a teaspoon that you want to keep for brewing. Weigh out 20 level tsp of sugar. Divide all up weight by 20, that's the weight of sugar delivered by your teaspoon. Adjust weight to each bottle according to the type of beer.
As Chewie said calculators are useful. Here is one.
Beer Priming Calculator - Brewer's Friend

 

[chthon]

I found them more helpful when moving beer to secondary, adding a couple of them to get some fermentation going to blow out the oxygen. However, the packet I got was from a commercial test and it is almost finished. I found glucose (dextrose/grape sugar) in my local supermarket (cheaper than at a brew store), and will use that in the future (also for brewing a Duvel clone).

 

[nigelnorris]

I'm one who mentioned plain tate and lyle sugar cubes elsewhere, they work fine so long as your content with that fixed degree of carbonation. My only concern is keeping them germ free, once the box is opened you can't seal it again, but emptying the box into a freezer bag and sealing that takes you to the same state you'd be in if you bought carbonation drops, but with a couple of quid left in your pocket.

A possible hangup, I read another thread where someone mentioned that they [cubes] don't fit nicely through most glass bottle necks, but they go fine into PET bottles.