How to increase the FG of my Stout?

I'm new here and I have a few questions. To start, I have brewed my first batch and it is now in the bottles. It's been 2 weeks and there doesn't seem to be much head. The beer tastes great but I was hoping for a nice creamy head. I followed the instructions from the kit, 2 cups of water boiled with 5oz of priming sugar. Any help?

The second question is, I am going the brew a stout and I want to increase the FG. I'm using a Brewer's Best Irish Stout Kit.

5 gallon batch


3.3lb. dark LME
2.0lb dark DME

Specialty Grains
12oz Caramel 60L
4oz Roasted Barley
4oz Black Patent

1oz Cascade @ 55min
.5oz Cascade @ 5min

White Labs Irish Ale yeast with .5gal starter.


I was thinking of adding 3 cinnamon sticks and about .5 to 1 cup of brown sugar. I am also add another .5lb of DME.

What do you think?

The first part of your question, how to increase the body and head of your stout that you have bottled is easy. Give it more time. Lots more time, like 2 to 3 months. It takes that long for the complexity of the dark malts to mature and work together.

Question 1:
The easiest way is to add 1/2 to 1 lb of Carapils to the recipe. It won't alter the flavor and really helps with head.

Question 2:
Do you know what your FG was? It's hard to answer without knowing that.

However, your recipe looks a little light for a stout. If I plugged it in right, Beer Smith shows an OG of about 1042, you want at least 1050 for a stout. I'd add at least a lb of DME to get the OG up. Don't add the sugar, it ferments at a higher rate than malt and will likely dry your beer out more.

Unless you have brewed a beer and added 3 cinnamon sticks to it and loved it, I would say to leave those out. IMHO they will make this batch a disappointment to you.

Brown sugar is just molasses and cane sugar. The cane sugar in it will thin the beer (lighten the body), the molasses will add a tiny bit of molasses flavor. If you want to thin the beer down then use it.

For my tastes, the DME is the way to go. Adding another lb. of it wil get you a 5%alc. beer 1.051vs 1.042.

Here's a free brewing calc. for you to use. http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

+1 on the cinnamon sticks. That's something to play with after you have a recipe down.

Also, most people try to stay away from the dark extracts once they start steeping grains. Use increased specialty grains to add your color. The calculator RCCOLA linked to will help.

Gene said:

I'm new here and I have a few questions. To start, I have brewed my first batch and it is now in the bottles. It's been 2 weeks and there doesn't seem to be much head. The beer tastes great but I was hoping for a nice creamy head. I followed the instructions from the kit, 2 cups of water boiled with 5oz of priming sugar. Any help?

Click to expand...

theres a lot of factors that go into head/head retention (OG, FG, hops used, malts used, temperature, yeast used, etc) so its hard to figure out the issue without more details. for now, id just give it more time before trying to assess any issues since its still young.

+1 to RCCOLA. nix the cinnamon stix, and use the DME to raise your FG. if you want to raise it even more, you can add some lactose.

Ravenshead said:

Question 1:
The easiest way is to add 1/2 to 1 lb of Carapils to the recipe. It won't alter the flavor and really helps with head.

Question 2:
Do you know what your FG was? It's hard to answer without knowing that.

However, your recipe looks a little light for a stout. If I plugged it in right, Beer Smith shows an OG of about 1042, you want at least 1050 for a stout. I'd add at least a lb of DME to get the OG up. Don't add the sugar, it ferments at a higher rate than malt and will likely dry your beer out more.

Click to expand...

1.042 fits in pretty well for a Irish style "Dry Stout"

You're right by the rules if you're looking for a dry stout. But I doubt even Guiness starts that low.

Without knowing when you wanna add things, sugar and cinnamon, it's hard to give any further advice.