Make sense to add alcohol boost to 2ndary??

Currently brewing my 1st batch - Oatmeal Stout from Brewers Best (looking for another kit to try - open to all suggestions).

As best I could tell from putting sanitized hydrometer directly into the batch, my OG was 1.050. Planning on moving to secondary in 2 days & just took another reading - 1.020. Fermentation stopped after two days, so worried, but figure right now I have a ABV of 4%.

Here's the question - I was hoping for ABV of about 5%. Since fermentation seems to have stopped (no gurgling in the airlock), does it make sense to add an alcohol boost to the secondary fermenter? If so, do I have to re-boil the batch, or can I add the sugar directly to the batch without boiling?

I've read that alcohol boost can seriously effect taste and mouth feel, so I'm wondering if I should bother or not. Even though fermentation seems to have stopped, is it possible that the gravity of my brew will still decrease during the secondary?

Thanks

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Give it another week in primary before taking another hydrometer reading. Just because the airlock has stopped, doesn't mean that the yeast are finished working.

If it has only been in primary for 2 days, fermentation has not stopped. An airlock bubbling or not is not always a sign of fermentation happening or not. I have had entire batches ferment just fine, never making a single bubble (that I could see) in the airlock. The ONLY way to tell if fermentation has stopped is with hydrometer readings, a day or more apart. RDWHAHB. You don't need to do anything to your beer but give it time.

What yeast are you using? I doubt that your OG was 1.05 - that's really low for a stout. That means you probably didn't stir well enough when you tested the OG (which I would recommend doing by pouring a sample in the hydrometer flask). 1.020 also seems high for a FG - you probably just have a stuck fermentation. Give it some time or do a search for stuck fermentation.

I don't know what comes in alcohol boosters, but if you really wanted more alcohol you could just add more sugar. That would thin things out, though. It's probably best to assume you have an inaccurate OG reading and accept that you don't have an accurate ABV calculation on this, which isn't the end of the world.

thasnazzle said:

I doubt that your OG was 1.05 - that's really low for a stout.

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Depends on the stout.

Edit: I overlooked the OPs mention that this is an oatmeal stout. I agree, you're right that 1.050 is a bit low for this style.

I just looked at the instructions for that kit, and it said that it should have an OG of 1.056-1.06 and an FG of 1.016-1.020. If you topped it up to the right amount, there is no reason your OG should be that low, unless you are reading your hydrometer wrong, or your wort wasn't mixed evenly. This is really easy to do when you are using top off water. Extract batches don't have as many variables to mess these things up. Remember, you read the line where it is even with the wort, not that little bit of wort that kind of creeps up the side, and removes a few points.