by Venezia and Company
Primetabs are an advancement in homebrewing so incredibly simple
yet ingenious in concept that one wonders why nobody had thought of it
earlier. Of course, isn't that always the case with the best ideas?
They are small, sanitized corn sugar tablets which come in packets of 250, and
are used when bottling your beer.
Though most folks who swear by the batch-priming method will not
likely find much use for primetabs per-se, as strong proponents of this method
of priming one's beer we have to say that we are the hugest fans of these simple
little sugar pills. We generally keg our beer and as such generally prime
it with our CO2 canister, so priming sugar of any sort is not something we use
much of. But where most of our batches are a bit bigger than an
average-sized keg, so we almost always have some leftover beer which inevitably
gets bottled. This is where we've found primetabs to be absolutely indispensable!
When bottling your beer you add from 2 to 5 primetabs to a
regular 12 oz / 330 ml bottle, depending upon how much carbonation you
desire. 2 for lowly-carbonated beers like British Ales, and up to 4 or 5
for highly carbed beer like Hefeweizen and others. There is no boiling or
other handling required - simply put the desired number of tablets into the
bottle and that's it. After experimenting with adding the tablets both
before and after the bottle gets filled with beer, we've found little difference
so the reader should choose whichever method she or he chooses. Either
way, once the bottle is capped it should be turned on-end 2 or 3 times until the
tablets dissolve in the liquid, then the bottles can be left in a dark 60F to
70F (15C to 20C) environment for the normal week or two, which is long enoughfor
the carbonation to develop.
The only downside of primetabs may be their price tag, as
they are definitely more expensive than your regular run-of-the-mill corn
sugar. A bag of 250 primetabs priced at about CDN / .50 US is about
the right amount for a single batch of beer. But as is so often the case
some folks are willing to trade-off a higher price for the convenience.
Since the manufacturer gives a free sample to anyone who asks, we strongly
encourage you to visit their website and
email them for yours. Then you can make up your own mind as to whether or
not the price is worth it. If we were bottling our whole batch of beer
rather than kegging most of it, we might not be such big fans. But for our
"onesies-twosies" usage we find Primetabs to be an absolutely indispensable
addition to our brewery. And besides, as demand increases, price will
probably drop.
It's not often we think anything deserves a perfect 10, but even
in spite of the pricetag we feel that this product definitely deserves
one! If the simplest ideas are usually the best, then Primetabs reigns
supreme in it's simplicity! Though not quite on the same level with the
discovery of the wheel or indeed human-kind's first encounter with fermented
barley, we do put it right up there as one of the biggest advancements in
homebrewing probably in the last decade.
Last Updated 2003.07.04 @ 08:53
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