How to increase Alcohol Content in beer?

Total noob, started with a mr. beer kit couple years ago, but wife just gave me a "deluxe" brewers best home brew kit. I'm starting simple with brewers best pre-packaged recipe kits, rabbit pellet hops, can malts etc. Have 1 batch fermenting now, and another kit ready to boil.

My question is this...how do I kick the alcohol content up a couple percentage points and make an extra stout brew for my third batch? yet keep the flavor palatable and not going into hard cider taste range.

yeast feeds on the sugar and by-product is alcohol, so sweeten up the wort will give the yeast more food, and do i need more yeast to eat the additional sugars? does fermenation temp change %alcohol content?

basically I want my third batch to be extra stout, around 6-6.5% alcohol, but not taste like hard cider. is that possible? if not what is reasonable.

I might be wrong on the amounts here, but I think that you get roughtly a 1% ABV increase for every pound of fermentable sugar that you add to the wort.





Am I right guys?

I think that calculation is right, though I wouldn't add more than a pound or two of sugar, some Belgian abbey ales use up to 15% sugar for the grist, but it's also because they want the beers to be dry. Except your beer to dry out when you add more sugar, since the yeast will ferment them completely because they are simpler sugars. If you use corn sugar or turbonado, at about 10% of the grist, you should not have to worry about the flavor becoming cidery.

roughly...really depends on what kind of sugar, no matter what it's less than 1% usually.

i'd just add malt extract

there are plenty of good stout recipes at the ABV you're suggesting. check out the recipes section and also this site to give you some ideas

You can also add honey. I would stick with a known recipe tho untill you get a little more experience.

talleymonster said:

I might be wrong on the amounts here, but I think that you get roughtly a 1% ABV increase for every pound of fermentable sugar that you add to the wort.





Am I right guys?

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how fermentable is honey? iff I add a 16oz jar of local honey to the wort, obviously it will effect the final flavor, but will it ferment? or is honey too hard for the yeast to eat and increase final alcohol content?

Honey is a good choice because it is very fermentable. It will add a hint of flavor and complexity, while boosting alcohol percentage.

Iordz said:

Honey is a good choice because it is very fermentable. It will add a hint of flavor and complexity, while boosting alcohol percentage.

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that's good to hear...think i'll expirement with a small jar of honey in my next wort boil...

just so the bottled beer doesn't get so high in alcohol content it turns into hard cider. see how far i can push the envelope between stout brew and palatable flavor, should i add more hops? or is the small jar of honey fine as it is.

You are right, you have to experiment to become familiar with the ingredients, to know how they taste in certain beers. Be prepared to taste some mediocre batches, at the same time there will be some great ones, as long as you take good notes you will be able to reproduce the beer you like. As for adding more hops, that's always a good thing in my books! Just remember to keep it balanced.

Acording to Papazian's The Home Brewer's Companion:

Honey is nearly 100% fermentable. It can lighten the flavor and body when substituted for malt.

talleymonster said:

Acording to Papazian's The Home Brewer's Companion:

Honey is nearly 100% fermentable. It can lighten the flavor and body when substituted for malt.

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just trying to kick up the final abv in my store kit a tad, without sacrificing flavor....not completely substitute malt with honey yet.. over my head....interesting though....

They have a recipe calculater at Tastybrew.com that can help you once you find a recipe you like if you want to tweak it a little. Just adding another pound fo malt extract will up the ABV about the easiest.

Willy Boner said:

They have a recipe calculater at Tastybrew.com that can help you once you find a recipe you like if you want to tweak it a little. Just adding another pound fo malt extract will up the ABV about the easiest.

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cool thank 'ya.. gonna check them out....i'm like a spring born puppy dog wagging my tail with all these references...


what would you say is the most abv you can bottle before it gets into hard cider, wine category? i'm pushing for 5-6.5% stout...

cider and wine are made from different things (grapes, apples, etc.)

a 6.5% stout is no problem...beers can be as 11% or more, but not for this style

DeathBrewer said:

cider and wine are made from different things (grapes, apples, etc.)

a 6.5% stout is no problem...beers can be as 11% or more, but not for this style

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Well, you can have the Impy Stouts hit 18% (DFH WW)

For 5-gallons of Extra Stout?

You’ll get .8% for every pound of DME.

You’ll also get .6% for every pound of quick oats (Oatmeal) you add. Quick oats add a nice mouth feel and are readily available at the grocery store. I’ve used before and was happy with the results.

Add one pound of each and you’ll go from a 5% to a 6.5% pretty easily.

Why not just get an Extra Stout Kit?

I love the "more alcohol please" posts! Anyway, what I've found is that simply adding more fermentables like sugar or honey tend to make the beer actually taste 'alcoholy'. If you have a recipe that was developed to be around 4.5% or so, bumping it to 6% is definitely going to affect the flavor. I would personally increase the malt instead, and then adjust the hops accordingly. I actually just tapped a nice smoked porter that came out good, but there is just a bit of an alcohol warmth to it. I"m actually thinking of knocking the ABV by at least 1%.

Here's something close by Northern Brewer:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/docs/kis-html/1701.html

So no one recommends the Brewvint Alcohol Boost stuff you can get from Austin HBS?

I do. It is a good way to add alcohol. Honey will change the flavor and it is more expensive than malt extract. All of the other options will cost more than Alcohol Boost to raise the the alcohol by 1%. We have sold over 10,000 alcohol boosts so far this year without a complaint.

I've used the AHS alcohol boost in the past and have had good results.

Just so you know...adding honey can be problematic because it can take a long time to ferment out completely.

Austinhomebrew said:

I do. It is a good way to add alcohol. Honey will change the flavor and it is more expensive than malt extract. All of the other options will cost more than Alcohol Boost to raise the the alcohol by 1%. We have sold over 10,000 alcohol boosts so far this year without a complaint.

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Are you saying that the Alcohol Boost won't change the flavor? How does the Alcohol Boost work if it doesn't change the flavor?

I think it has a mixture of ingredients that allows it to ferment out, leaving more alcohol while retaining some of the body...giving very little change in flavor. I've never used it myself.

Evan! said:

Just so you know...adding honey can be problematic because it can take a long time to ferment out completely.

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Is there a certain yeast or fermenting temp. that will help??

Just get the right recipe and you don't have to "boost" it. Something like this:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...ct-ale-kits/big-honkin-stout-extract-kit.html

I've used the Alcohol boost from AHS twice, both with good results.

Evan! said:

Just so you know...adding honey can be problematic because it can take a long time to ferment out completely.

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I've noticed!! I experimented with a batch of cider. I took 5 gallons of apple cider, added 3 lbs of honey and 2 lbs of brown sugar. the 5 or 6 beer's I've done so far were actively fermenting for 4 days, 5 at the most before the airlock stopped bubbling.

the cider was actively fermenting and bubbling the airlock for nearly 3 full weeks!

I'm hoping that batch will mature. so far, it's been a little "off" when I've tasted it. I let it age in the carboy for another 3 weeks after fermentation ended, then bottled it and let it age another 3 weeks. it wasn't very good. initial flavor of cider, but a weird aftertaste. another 6 weeks later, and it was noticably smoother, but still not quite what I was hoping for.

I've heard to let wines age a long time, and when we went to Napa on vacation, we talked with wine makers out there, and they're aging wines 18 months!

anyway, I just finished a batch of a smoked porter that turned out awesome, and I plan on duplicating, with some more tweaks. I started with a brewers best "smoked porter" I picked up an extra 3.3 lbs of special dark malt extract, and when I brewed it, I made 2 12-cup pots of starbucks house blend coffee, and added 1/2 lb of pure cocoa to the wort.

that was a very nice tasting beer! next time I'm going to add some vanilla (I meant to the first time, but forgot with everything else going on!) and I'm going to try some lactose to add a creaminess to it, thought being that a milky creamy flavor would go well with the coffee and chocolate.

addding a lot of honey to your homebrew is a setup for headache...literally. Homebrew honey beers are a recipe for hangovers. Go with the corn sugar or just add some DME.

I'm in the camp of 'let the recipe have the alcohol that comes natural from it'. I think that if you want more alcohol you should buy/design a recipe that naturally produces more.

But for me the beer has never been about how much alcohol is in it, but how it tastes. For example, I don't brew imperial IPAs because I want to get tanked, I brew them because it's the only way to enjoy that much intensity of hop flavors, the amount of alcohol is simply a requirement to get that flavor right.

I couldnt agree more Magee. Im getting ready to brew an imperial stout to be ready for next winter and nothing is better in the winter than a pint of a 9% imperial stout to sip on the recliner.