Ways to raise the ABV

Just wondering some tecniques to raise the abv in a beer. Like if you wanted to go up 1%. I'm guessing you have to add sugars, but not sure how to go about it.

Are you asking how to raise the ABV of a beer thats already reached final gravity?

no, how to raise the ABV of a recipe. Is it as easy as adding sugar to the recipe, more grains, or what. Probably a dumb question but I'm prett new to this.

You are taking the wrong approach - the ABV in the beer doesn't really matter; in fact, the actual alcohol flavor is considered a sign of a poorly brewed beer in many styles. Excellent commercial breweries like Cigar City make very high-alcohol beers but still manage to hide the alcohol flavor in the complexity of the ingredients. It's the balance of the ingredients and a clean fermentation that makes a good beer.

So I ask you - why do you want to increase the ABV?

Oh god, not again... lol

Easiest ways are to increase the amount of fermentables in the recipe... This can be as easy as more DME, or a combination of DME and sugars, or just sugars like honey, dememera, etc...

Which you use has more to do with the brew you're making than anything else.

IF you're brewing all grain, then just add more grain to the recipe and/or mash at a slightly lower temp. Mashing at a lower temp will lower the FG of the recipe, giving you more ABV with the same grain bill. Just be sure the recipe will hold up well to that. I wouldn't do that to something that's supposed to have huge mouth-feel and was originally to be mashed at 158, mashing at 152...

If you're brewing extract, or partial mashes, then just add some more DME to get closer to your ABV target. Mashing a little cooler (1-2F) should get the FG a bit lower too, so you don't need to use as much extra extract to get the result you want...

If you have a recipe in mind, post it up... Also post what your target ABV is...

I do agree with ArcaneXor too... I would rather have a smooth brew, with a decent kick but where I didn't get a hot flavor to it, than a HOT brew where it was difficult to drink... To get there, you sometimes need to age a brew, if it's a high enough ABV. Or use methods to mellow it out before it's ready for drinking...

But, taking a recipe from ~4.5% to 5.5% isn't rocket science, or a bad thing... Just be smart about it. Also realize that you'll probably want to let it go a little longer on the yeast in order to make it balanced/ready for drinking...

+1 to Golddiggie

It totally depends on the style of the brew you are making. Adding any fermentables will change the beer though. You'll also probably want to use more hops to balance and account for lost IBUs due to higher gravity wort.

Also, if you use "plain" sugar of any kind (sucrose, corn sugar, candi sugar, etc) it will thin the final beer and make it a bit more dry.

Support your local beekeeper and put a pound of honey in the recipe!

Just make sure the recipe won't be negatively impacted by the addition of honey.

I used honey in my initial batches, since I'm a honey nut (still am, have 4 batches of mead going now though)... Since going all grain, I'm refraining from using other sugars in the wort (this includes honey)... Since converting my large cooler into the mash tun, I've not needed to add any other sugars to get to my OG target. :rockin: I also have three batches in process that I added honey malt to... I want to see what that will give my brews. I know it won't be the same as a specific type of honey, but it's good to experiment.