I want to boost my ABV! Adding more sugar

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xpandnz

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I just started a Coopers Sparkling Ale. The OG was 1054. If FG is 1012 it would be about 5.8 ish. I boiled 50grams of Cascades for 10 mins and added to wort to give it some hoppy goodness and want to boost the ABV up to around 7%. Whens a good time to add some more dextrose?

My recipe in there at the moment is a 1.7kg can of Coopers Sparkling Ale, 1.5kg Light Malt. 500grams of DME and 400grams of Dextrose. The reading was 1054.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks
 
Are you making beer for the buzz, or for the taste? Adding more sugar will thin out the beer and likely make it less malty, if that's what you're after go for it. Rougly 1 pound of sugar in the recipe already should be plenty, though.
 
A bit of both. I went to a beer festival recently and had some amazing Hoppy Beers around the 7% mark. Couldn't taste the alcohol but was nice to have a good strong beer. However, if adding more sugar destroys the quality of the beer, which I know would if I was just adding dextrose only to the kit, then I won't do it. I like a good beer.
 
Personally, I think that I would just let it be and enjoy this one for what it is and modify the recipe next time you brew to increase the gravity (easiest way would be to increase the amount of DME going in while brewing). If you were to do this though remember that bigger beers require heavier hopping rates so theres a chance that you would want to increase some of your hop additions also.

The problem with adding Dextrose to boost abv is that it is a simple sugar that the yeast will chew through easily which means you get a big alcohol boost but it leaves behind no residual sugars so it decreases the body of the beer.

The sugars that come from malted barely (ie what you get in DME and LME) are more complex and the yeast leave behind some residual sugars which is what adds to the beers character.

I'm a little confused by where you're at in the brewing process... are you planning on brewing this now or is it already fermenting?
 
Yes, silly mistake me not mentioning where I am. Its been fermenting for about 2 hours.

I'll probably leave it I think. I don't like dextrose.
 
I think its a good call to just let it ride.

There's been discussion before of people adding DME into the fermenter after fermentation began with some success but generally speaking its usually best to not go splashing around in your beer during fermentation.
 
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