I know that you are supposed to use these in place of priming sugar and that you add them to your bottles before you add the wort. I was wondering if anybody has added them to a full bottle that is completely flat, then recap and wait another 2-3 weeks. The reason I ask is that I can envision completing a 5 gallon batch resulting in little or no carbonation in the bottles after waiting a considerable amount of time. Would this “save” the batch or am I having a pipe dream?
Don’t add the fizz drop to the bottles at this point. Even though the beer seems flat, adding the tab will give plenty of nucleation sites for CO2 to form and gush out of the bottles. Instead bring the fizz drops to a boil and add the appropriate amount of sugar with a dropper.
So basically I would be repriming the beer with a solution similar to the original priming (5 oz sugar/ 16 oz boiling water) but to a lesser degree using a dropper? Just started brewing so if my questions seem asinine there is good reason.
Flat beer is a symptom; what’s the problem that caused the beer to be flat? If the problem was that it wasn’t properly primed them sugar is the answer. If you end up over priming you can make gushers, or even bottle bombs.
It may not be priming sugar, you may need more yeast.
Most of my under carbed beers have been because of simply not waiting long enough.
What type if beer is it? what strain of yeast? How long was it in primary/secondary? How long has it been bottled?
Hans is giving you good advice. You can boil the drops, or boil some table sugar. You can figure the amount with any priming sugar calculator (one on this site). I used boiled and cooled sugar water to carb a batch of brown ale that was flat after about 8 weeks in the bottle. Worked great. If you use dry sugar or fizz drops alone, like Hans said, you’ll get fizz fountains.
If this is a large batch you might try one or two bottles at first, just to make sure the lack of sugar is your problem. If it’s the yeast(or lack thereof), the sugar won’t help. Good luck.
Ron
I see JMcK beat me to the punch!
