I’ve been kegging for a while now and lovin it, but I generally do 6.5 gallons fermentations so I usually have 1.5 gallons or so to bottle. I decided to try out the Munton’s priming tablets and while they carbonate well, they are aesthetically unsettling. All the beers I’ve used them in have a flakey residue that I just can’t abide. So last batch the Brewmistress calculated how much corn sugar priming solution we would need and we did it the old fashioned way.
What other methods, products have you guys used with satisfactory results? Has anyone tried the lemon drop looking things? I have enough flakes in my life. I don’t want them in my beer.
Honestly I use table sugar. I have organic evaporated cane juice type sugar as my everyday cooking baking sugar and I just use that. I have used honey and that was fine, a little slow but fine. I have used malt extract a few times cause I was all excited about being 100% malt but now a days, unless I am up to something particular, it’s the plain old table sugar. a few ounces (I use beersmith to tell me how much) in a cup of water, boil and cover the night before bottling and add to bucket.
I used maple syrup for a batch of barley wine I recently bottled and got spooked by the amount I figured out I would need so used less and ended up with a really nice low soft carbonation.
Ordinary cane sugar.
Do you use ordinary cane sugar in the same ratio as corn sugar?
No, it’s slightly more for corn sugar. DME or LME is very expenseive. Cane sugar is extremely acceptable.
+1, and it’s extremely available and extremely inexpensive. It’s all I use.
I have used both the coopers and muntons drops with good results… as well as cane sugar and corn sugar.
I liked the Muntons tablets due to the ability to more reliably set the carbonation compared to Coopers (the coopers drops seem to have a high degree of variability in size in my opinion), however, I admit, that I did not find any noticeable difference between bottles of beer carbed by Coopers Tabs.
I did not have the flake issue you had with the Muntons… just curious… how long did you leave the bottles to carbonate? Also, what kind of beer was it? I have used the Muntons on Vienna Lagers, Cream Ales, and I think a couple Alt beers without any issues.

Ordinary cane sugar.
Cane sugar
Or better yet, CO2 in a keg.
I do 6.5 gallon fermentations so 5 gal. goes to the kegs and I bottle the rest.
The bottles have been aged for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. I’ve had the residue issue in every beer that I’ve used the Munton’s tabs in. Pale, Stout, Honey Pale, IPA. It doesn’t affect the flavor and it carbs nicely, it’s just nothing I would want to give a guest or hand out to friends. I broke down and made a keg to bottle filling line last week for presents.
At this point I just brew from extract kits, so I just use whatever priming sugar comes in the box. Usually corn sugar (5 oz for a 5 gal batch), and it’s worked just fine so far.
Are those Coopers tablets just one per 12-oz bottle? I recall the directions being something like 1 tablet per bottle, but 2 for a long neck. I assume the long neck is something like a 22-oz bottle?
When I get back from travel, I have a wheat beer that I am going to experiment by priming some of the bottles with fruit juice. Like priming with just about anything, I have no idea how much character (if any) the priming agent will carry over to the beer. I’ve always wanted to experiment with krausening as well.
Otherwise, I just use plain old table sugar (sucrose). I boil it up in a pint or so of water before I add it to the bottling bucket. I just read the amount I need right of of John Palmer’s priming nomograph. I have a copy of it in my brew log so it takes me, like, five seconds to figure out how much sugar I need.