To carbonate your beer, cider or ginger beer, you can use sugar or carbonation drops.
Depending on which kit you have you may have either of these, or you can do what suits your preference for ease of use and availability of consumables - it's your choice.
If you want to know more about the sugar required during fermentation for Ginger Beer and Kombucha - see our blog article here.
Carbonation Drops:
Carbonation drops are simply balls of boiled hard sugar. They make carbonating bottles nice and easy as you can just pop them into a bottle without measuring. However these are designed for 750ml bottles and other sized bottles will require you to cut them smaller which may present challenges. If so, you can use sugar instead.
Sugar:
As mentioned, you do not have to use carbonation drops, sugar is fine. And it can be just plain white sugar at that.
We have a handy 3 Way Sugar Measurer available (depending on availability per market) which makes measuring out the correct amount of sugar for different sized bottles nice and easy - however, if you do not have one you can convert using the table below.
Conversion Chart
| Bottle Size | 3 Way Sugar Measurer | Carbonation Drops | Grams/Ounces | Teaspoons* |
| 330 ml | 0.33 Scoop | 1 drop | 3.6 g/0.12 oz | ~ 1/2 tsp |
| 500 ml | 0.5 Scoop | 1.5 drops | 5.4 g/0.19 oz | ~ 1 tsp |
| 750 ml | 0.75 Scoop | 2 drops | 7.2 g/0.25 oz | ~ 1 1/3 tsp |
*For measurements in grams - a cut teaspoon of sugar is approximately 4.2 g/0.15 oz
Over & Under Carbonating and Storage:
It is important not to over carbonate as it could be dangerous - this will cause a build up in pressure and could cause lids to pop off and harm someone standing nearby.
Under carbonating will mean it might be flat. If you're certain you measured correctly and it's still flat, check your lids were on and sealed properly/tightly so no gas can escape.
During Storage - Make sure that the bottles are stored at room temperature, away from direct sunlight during the carbonation process.
