Boosting ABV midway? Which sugar to use?

Some noobie questions:

I'm four days into my second simple batch, just yeast and apple juice. Liked the first one a lot, dry, crisp and simple, but realized that I'd like this one to pack a little more punch. What are the consequences of trying to give this batch a boost a few days in? Is dextrose the best way to do this without affecting the flavor? If I didn't have dextrose, what would be the next best way without affecting flavor much?


Also:
When I bottled the first batch, I followed the same recipe for carbing as was provided in my beer kits: 3/4 cup of dextrose for a five-gallon batch. Worked fine. Would that be the same ratio if I used brown sugar, or regular granulated cane sugar? Some one on a forum here recommended using a can of apple juice concentrate for carbing? Would that be one can per five gallon batch? Is the amount of carbonation just a function of the calories or are there other factors?

Lot's of questions. Thanks in advance.

redbiers said:

Some noobie questions:

I'm four days into my second simple batch, just yeast and apple juice. Liked the first one a lot, dry, crisp and simple, but realized that I'd like this one to pack a little more punch. What are the consequences of trying to give this batch a boost a few days in? Is dextrose the best way to do this without affecting the flavor? If I didn't have dextrose, what would be the next best way without affecting flavor much?

Click to expand...

How much apple juice, and what kind of yeast? Short answer is, dextrose will work, and so will plain old table sugar (in moderation, for a beverage like this).

redbiers said:

Also:
When I bottled the first batch, I followed the same recipe for carbing as was provided in my beer kits: 3/4 cup of dextrose for a five-gallon batch. Worked fine. Would that be the same ratio if I used brown sugar, or regular granulated cane sugar? Some one on a forum here recommended using a can of apple juice concentrate for carbing? Would that be one can per five gallon batch? Is the amount of carbonation just a function of the calories or are there other factors?

Click to expand...

Dextrose, brown sugar and cane sugar are interchangeable for carbonation purposes. It's not just a matter of calories (otherwise, you could use, say, a pork chop to carbonate your beer). It's the amount of fermentable sugars. As far as concentrate goes, you could probably just use the grams of sugars listed on the label to calculate how much concentrate you need.

Boil the sugar in a bit of water to sanitize, cool it down and pitch it in. If this is a 5 gallon batch, up to two pounds of sugar would be OK.

+1 for Bobby

I'd add up to 2 #'s of Corn Sugar...boiled and cooled.

(Works for Apfelwein...good enough for me.)

thanks folks. Just to be sure. there's no problem at all adding it five days into fermentation?

redbiers said:

thanks folks. Just to be sure. there's no problem at all adding it five days into fermentation?

Click to expand...

Nope, you'll be fine

Ok, so I'm getting ready to bottle and carb. I'm used to using 3/4 cup of dextrose to carb a five gallon batch of ale but I don't have any on hand so I'm planning to use a can of frozen apple juice from concentrate (this was recommended somewhere here on the forum). It's got a total of 168 grams of sugar, according to the label. Is this about right for a 5 gallon batch of cider? Where will this fall on the spectrum of low to high carb?

redbiers said:

Ok, so I'm getting ready to bottle and carb. I'm used to using 3/4 cup of dextrose to carb a five gallon batch of ale but I don't have any on hand so I'm planning to use a can of frozen apple juice from concentrate (this was recommended somewhere here on the forum). It's got a total of 168 grams of sugar, according to the label. Is this about right for a 5 gallon batch of cider? Where will this fall on the spectrum of low to high carb?

Click to expand...

Be careful with this, it may contain preservatives that can kill the yeast.

Says all natural. Just asorbic acid. Is that ok?

Yup, that should be fine.

Should be okay. Ascorbic acid = Vitamin C.