Best way to bring up alcohol content

I'm interested to hear what the best way is to increase alcohol content. I know you need sugar, but I'm wondering how much sugar (DME). Is DME the best route to go? I want the beer to be balanced and not all alcohol, but I'm thinking about modifying a recipe by adding more hops and some DME to increase the alcohol content.

So, what do you normally do?

Well, how much do you want to increase the % by? A pound of DME will increase your ABV by .8%

If your doing an extract, use DME or LME to get your ABV up, not brown, or table sugar.

From what I have read (please let me know if I am wrong here) if you don't want to affect the body of the beer but want to get the final gravity a little higher you can have up to 7% of the total grist be corn sugar.

My brewing practice with 95% of other's recipes has been add more grain and hops, but I am a hophead and like big beers.

The simplest way is simply to add a little more DME/LME. Unless you're ready to jump into the deep end of the pool (or have a beer program like beer smith) I wouldn't even bother adjusting hops or any of your specialty grains.) For instance, if you have a recipe for a 6% beer and you want to ramp it up to a 7% beer, I wouldn't change anything except the amount of extract.

Here's an excerpt from Palmer's book that might help you figure out how much more extract you want to add: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter3-4.html

Edit: I should point out, while sugar will increase your original gravity, it will produce a drier beer. That's why I recommend just adding more extract.

Plain white table sugar, sucrose is 100% fermentable. Cane is identical to beet and it increases alcohol and decreases body from residual sugars.

Strictly speaking, the BEST way is to brew a different beer. That is, instead of throwing a bunch of spurious fermentables into, say, a Dry Stout kit, just buy the kit for the RIS you wanted in the first place.

Or just drop a depth charge of 80 proof into the glass at serving time.

DannPM said:

Plain white table sugar, sucrose is 100% fermentable. Cane is identical to beet and it increases alcohol and decreases body from residual sugars.

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Tried that once..too much and the taste later is not good. Ruined a good beer that way once trying to make a high ABV beer....but man if you want to get drunk fast it does the trick.

Ive used dark brown sugar in my imperial stout and barley wine with good results but like mentioned by jgln to much is not good. I keep it below 10% of the total and a pound increases the abv about 1% in 5 gallons.

Anyone tried this? I was thinking of trying it on a Brown Ale I plan to brew soon, but don't want to ruin the flavor.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10137

BigTerp said:

Anyone tried this? I was thinking of trying it on a Brown Ale I plan to brew soon, but don't want to ruin the flavor.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10137

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I have. It's pretty much as advertised. raises my OG roughly .007 on a 5 gallon extract full boil and I don't notice any taste difference

In my Hopped up Honey wheat I added 2 lbs of honey and I can tell there is more alcohol than normal.

944play said:

Strictly speaking, the BEST way is to brew a different beer. That is, instead of throwing a bunch of spurious fermentables into, say, a Dry Stout kit, just buy the kit for the RIS you wanted in the first place.

Or just drop a depth charge of 80 proof into the glass at serving time.

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+1000 There are plenty of High ABV beer styles and kits out there. Adding fermentables to a low abv recipe is just asking for problems.

I added 2 lbs of honey to my Hopped up Honey Wheat . Don't be scared to experiment a little bit.

brettwasbtd said:

+1000 There are plenty of High ABV beer styles and kits out there. Adding fermentables to a low abv recipe is just asking for problems.

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By adding ingredients he is essentially creating a new recipe. Some extra DME in the wort isn't going to ruin the beer. He didn't say anything about the original recipe being low ABV, he just wanted to beef it up a little.

Scaling a beers ABV by +/-1% should be harmless, especially in an extract. I know from lots of experience. The balance might be thrown off a little, but I have made many very delicious beers that were someone else's recipe with a few extra pounds of two row tossed in.

jclaine said:

By adding ingredients he is essentially creating a new recipe. Some extra DME in the wort isn't going to ruin the beer. He didn't say anything about the original recipe being low ABV, he just wanted to beef it up a little.

Scaling a beers ABV by +/-1% should be harmless, especially in an extract. I know from lots of experience. The balance might be thrown off a little, but I have made many very delicious beers that were someone else's recipe with a few extra pounds of two row tossed in.

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Correct, I made a few assumptions in my reply. A lot of times the brewers asking these questions are fairly new and may not understand all of what is going on with making a higher alcohol beer. The OP said they wanted a balanced beer, and I agree a +/- 1% is not a huge deal (Jamil's Can You Brew it they have been off by this amount and stille deem a beer "cloned"), but if the recipe chosen wasn't balanced to begin with it could cause problems. Additionally, if the OP doesn't have good temp control, adding more fermentables may produce a less desirable beer.

Like others have mentioned, add more malt extract to increase abv is the best way to go

kenpotf said:

So, what do you normally do?

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I don't normally do anything with the expressed objective of creating more alcohol.

Like 944play says, change the type of beer is your best way if you are interested in more octane in your brew. Look for a recipe for Imperial IPA or Barleywine. Even Apfelwein checks in at 8.5% abv.

What percent ABV do you want in a brew?