How to increase alcohol%

Im new to brewing and it seems like every brew i do the alcohol% comes in around 6-7.5%. Is there a simple and easy way to increase my beers alchohol% up to the 8.5-10% range? Exact products names and techniques would be great

You need to add more fermentable sugars to your wort for the yeast to eat. If brewing all grain, increase your grain bill. If extract, increase your LME or DME by a few pounds. You could also play with things like honey or brown sugar in your recipes. Just make sure to take into account how a stronger malt presence will impact your hop schedule & amount/type of yeast you need...you may need to increase amounts to balance out your recipes.

I use the Brew Pal app on my iPhone when formulating recipes. You just plug in your fermentables, yeast, additions, hops, etc & it outputs your ABV & IBUs. So far it's been very accurate. There are a lot of these resources out there.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

beersmith will help with the calcs.

I can get hi-malt glucose syrup from my LHBS and that's what I use. I would also consider things like dextrose and rice syrup depending on what flavours you want to add. if you just want to up the alchol and not change the taste too much then find the product with the most fermentable sugars.
. check your yeast strain too. that much alcohol could have a negative impact on attenuation depending on the alcohol tolerance of your yeast. also you will have a high OG and may need to pitch extra yeast. I've never done anything like this before...sounds like carbed barleywine to me.....!

Add Lot's of "Table Sugar" to your wort at the end of the boil. Sugar is completely consumed and turned into alcohol during the ferment.

yodalegomaster said:

Add Lot's of "Table Sugar" to your wort at the end of the boil. Sugar is completely consumed and turned into alcohol during the ferment.

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It'll also make your beer taste crazy cidery... Make a bigger beer (more malt & balance with hops) or just have a shot with your beer! :rockin:

+1 just dumping in a bunch of sugar is a good way to make high ABV crap that you have to choke down.

Brew recipes that are meant for higher ABV in the first place and you don't have this problem.

Be aware that making really big beers takes commitment, too. It's not as easy as making standard sized beers, and takes a lot longer. Be prepared to age your beers a few months after bottling, at least, before they start to taste good.

Alternately, you can use the beer you already brew to make an ice beer. That might be the easiest way. See the process here:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=february-20-2009-barleywine-ice-beer

Gordzilla said:

Im new to brewing and it seems like every brew i do the alcohol% comes in around 6-7.5%.

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I don't think its by magic. There probably is a reason they are at that level. If you are brewing pre-made kits, then find a kit that makes a bigger brew. If you are doing all-grain, then pick a recipe with more base grains. It's not rocket science.

Whats wrong with a 7% brew? Some of my favorites are "only" 6-7%.

Lots of beer is "only" 6-7%. They are average I think. There are plenty of good ones, just as there are plenty of good 4% session beers, and 8-10% imperial beers. The idea is to match the grain bill to the hops for the style you are shooting for and pitch plenty of yeast. Then sit back and wait for the yeasts to do their job. They are generally slower at the end of one of those heavier beers. It's generally not much more difficult than that.

I was a bit curious of this myself. I'm fermenting my first American Style Lager and it called for rice syrup (ended up using rice syrup solids). From what I've read the rice syrup only adds fermentable sugars without adding taste or color (of course upping the alcohol will affect the taste).

Would you just be able to add rice syrup to up the alcohol content?

fxdude said:

I was a bit curious of this myself. I'm fermenting my first American Style Lager and it called for rice syrup (ended up using rice syrup solids). From what I've read the rice syrup only adds fermentable sugars without adding taste or color (of course upping the alcohol will affect the taste).

Would you just be able to add rice syrup to up the alcohol content?

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Well, that's the whole purpose of rice syrup. That's why the American Light Lager is so light. It uses Corn or Rice to increase the fermentability without adding mouthfeel or flavors.

So the question is, do you want to do that? For some styles it best to add some and bump up the ABV while keeping it light and refreshing. But it's not for every recipe or style. Simply adding syrups can change the entire balance of a beer, and one that was perfect without, may be hot, or thin, or hoppy with.

Depends on what I'm making. I've added plain table sugar to the boil, light or dark brown sugar, fruit extract/syrup, honey, even Booster bought through Mr. Beer kit website.

I actually have a friend who is fermenting a northern nut brown ale at my place. It's been in the primary for three week. Took readings over the last two days and it's at 2% alcohol with a really strong nutty flavor. He was thinking of boiling some rice syrup solids in a very small amount of water, cool it down, then dump it into the primary to see if the yeast will pick back up and ferment a second time.

I'm not really sure what will happen or if that will even work or if it will end up ruining the beer. Right now it just tastes like a really watered down nutty ale.

Is your purpose to have good beer or just to get drunk? I've heard that grain alcohol is cheap. You could just dump a bunch of that into your beer but don't blame me if it isn't drinkable. The purpose of the recipes and recipe kits is to produce a good tasting beer to fit within a style. Adding sugar or rice syrup will change that and a lot of the time it won't be for the better.

Just add more extract or more grains per gallon.
try sugar,molassis. corn,table.honey, if you dont like them dont use them.Best thing is to just increase your fermentables with base grains and or extract.

fxdude said:

I actually have a friend who is fermenting a northern nut brown ale at my place. It's been in the primary for three week. Took readings over the last two days and it's at 2% alcohol with a really strong nutty flavor. He was thinking of boiling some rice syrup solids in a very small amount of water, cool it down, then dump it into the primary to see if the yeast will pick back up and ferment a second time.

I'm not really sure what will happen or if that will even work or if it will end up ruining the beer. Right now it just tastes like a really watered down nutty ale.

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2% isn't possible. I bet he's reading the "potential alcohol" scale on the hydrometer which isn't the correct scale to be looking at. Look at the Specific gravity scale and see what it is. That will tell you the final gravity. You need to subtract that from the original gravity and do a bit of math to find the actual ABV. 2% is NOT correct, though! We can help you with the actual ABV if you tell us the original reading or the reading the instructions told you to expect.

If you want to ruin a probably decent beer, then go ahead and have him add the rice syrup solids. I'd skip that and do the math, though!

You can add a bunch of table sugar, dextrose, honey, corn syrup, brown sugar, or whatever you want. The only drawback is more sugar= more conditioning time. 1 lbs of sugar or less in most beers is not a problem, but 2-2.5 lbs will need many months of conditioning, or it tastes like crap. On the other hand, a large amount of sugar in your beer combined with a long conditioning period produces excellent tasting beers, Duvel and many other excellent beers are made this way

Make a 5 gallon extract kit with 4 gallons of water.

BrokenDog said:

Make a 5 gallon extract kit with 4 gallons of water.

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+1

Probably the easiest answer to increasing ABV without knocking a recipe out of balance. Then use a higher ABV attenuating yeast such as Fermentis S-33 or T-58