Carbonating individual bottles

I am planning on bottling 2 different batches of hard cider this weekend. Half of each I want to leave still and plan to carbonate the other half. Anyone here had success with table sugar directly in the bottle? If so any thoughts on the amount I was thinking a smidgen less than 1/8th tsp in each 12oz bottle, and they will age at around 68-70 degrees F.

I’ve used table sugar right in the bottle (20 years ago). Works fine. No idea how much I used to add.

Switched to adding to the full volume quite quickly though. Less of a pain.

Carbing drops. Get’em! I don’t bottle often but when I do I use them with great success. There are 2 types that I know of. Coopers makes a big drop where you would use 1 per 12oz bottle and 2 per 22oz. There’s another brand (the name escapes me) with small drops. You can control the carbonation level much better with these. 2 drops for low carb, 3 for medium, 4 for more carb (Belgians, wheats, etc). I’ve had good success with both brands and much easier when only filling a few bottles at a time.

I’m sure our host sells them.

EDIT: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/nb-f … -8-oz.html

[quote=“dobe12”]Carbing drops. Get’em! I don’t bottle often but when I do I use them with great success. There are 2 types that I know of. Coopers makes a big drop where you would use 1 per 12oz bottle and 2 per 22oz. There’s another brand (the name escapes me) with small drops. You can control the carbonation level much better with these. 2 drops for low carb, 3 for medium, 4 for more carb (Belgians, wheats, etc). I’ve had good success with both brands and much easier when only filling a few bottles at a time.

I’m sure our host sells them.

EDIT: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/nb-f … -8-oz.html[/quote]Munton’s carb tabs. Both work great. Table sugar works well too but I would recommend weighing it on a digital scale rather than using volume measurements.

Carbing drops, as mentioned, are going to be your easiest solution. If you don’t want to track some down, you could always make a sugar syrup and stir it into your bottling bucket after you bottle the ones you want to be still. You can use this site to calculate how much sugar you would need: http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipa … 352088#tag

That said, if you’ve got time and local opportunity, this is a perfect application for carb drops.

I have used Cooper’s carb drops with good results. Supposedly one sugar cube is just right to carbonate a 12oz bottle, but I haven’t tried it (yet).

My local HB store is out and all they carry is the tabs, I may look into the drops.