Has anybody used carbonation tablets in lieu of corn sugar?

[dbevisjr]

Just wondering how long it takes for the tablets to dissolve. I bottled 4 days ago and the tablets are still whole but not lying directly on the bottom of the bottle. They are suspended about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom so I'm guessing that something is happening in there but still curious about it. Also if you have used the tablets and corn sugar which do you prefer and why? Thanks in advance for any information.

[RickS]

Give it 30 days in the bottle.  Don't worry about them, they will do their job.

[twhitaker]

I used those tablets for a while.  Yes takes 2 to 3 weeks or longer  for carbonation. Prefer corn sugar now for bottles, quick dissolve is better (7-14 ) days.
My Priority is  to keg carbonate and dispense , and only bottle a few from each batch.

[dbevisjr]

Thanks for the information brewers.

[Maine Homebrewer]

I keg my beer, and thought I'd use the tablets to bottle a six pack or two before putting it in the keg.  Every bottle turned into a gusher. Don't know if the tablets caused it or if the brew was already infected, but being that the stuff in the keg came out fine I'm thinking it was the tablets. Haven't used them since.

[dbevisjr]

Thanks Maine Homebrewer. That's actually why I'm trying the tablets. I don't keg now but I think I've come up with a winning plan to get my wife to agree to let me spend the money on a kegging  system. Since I would still like to have a few bottles on hand for portability I was considering the tablets for that.

[Scott Ickes]

I've been kegging for about 6 months now and realized that I didn't have a way to get bottles ready for competitions or homebrew meetings.  I just picked up carb tablets today at my LHBS.  I have two batches ready to keg and I'm going to try the carb tablets to bottle about 10 bottles of each one up, then keg the rest.  Stayed tuned. 

[dbevisjr]

Thanks Scott. Let me know how your brew turns out with the carb tablets. There is something happening in my bottles. The tablets have not dissolved yet but are suspended about where the neck of the bottle begins as of today. I usually take my first taste test at 2 weeks but I will apparently have to wait with this one.

[twhitaker]

  As for dosage, I believe the package I was using was Australian, even though I am in Canada. Therefore British measure, which I understood to be one tablet per pint. So I was dosing 500 ml poly bottles with one tablet with  good results after a month at room temperature. Any smaller bottle (330-355 ml is standard bottle size) I would use half a tablet. I did only a few small bottles. You can break them with your hands, or a mallet not easy but do-able once they get older. Sometimes there are broken ones in the bag already, just find what looks like half a tab. CHEERS!