Increasing ABV

The beer that I just finished fermenting has a lower ABV then I would like. What would be the consequence of adding 1 or 2 percent of neutral spirits (like ever clear) to the batch?

well, you could try it on a very small scale and see for yourself. But off-hand, I would think it would throw the beer out of balance -you would likely get a more 'alcohol taste' which is not particularly desirable.
If you're doing all-grain, adjust your mash to make a more fermentable wort and you will have a higher level -if extract, add more fermentable sugars, increase your malt bill, and you should get more alcohol. But if you want to add to your current batch, try small-scale first as you can't take it back out again if you ruin it.

You could try this:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produ...10137&osCsid=15bce9d5e750eda10e505da81b2f2cf9

NRS

NorthRiverS said:

You could try this:

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produ...10137&osCsid=15bce9d5e750eda10e505da81b2f2cf9

NRS

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says to add during boil so it may be a bit late

You might add fermentables and let it sit for another week or two but what is wrong with a lower ABV then expected

Your beer is what it is at this point. Adjust it next time you brew. I am not a fan of adjusting things late in the game with beer.

There is just to many variables we do not have to offer up good advice other than drink it as is. Like Extract/PM or AG? OG/FG? style or better yet recipe?

logan3825 said:

Your beer is what it is at this point. Adjust it next time you brew. I am not a fan of adjusting things late in the game with beer.

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+1 to this. don't screw with it. you change it, you change the taste. right now, you have a beer a little light in taste. you add stuff like everclear, you end up with that beer with an alcohol burn

Just curious - what style is it?

logan3825 said:

Your beer is what it is at this point. Adjust it next time you brew. I am not a fan of adjusting things late in the game with beer.

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+1 more to this. Enjoy your session brew and make it a monster next time :rockin:

-Cheers

I noticed that not one has asked what the ABV% was yet
Well what is it?
Also what was the OG?

janivar123 said:

I noticed that not one has asked what the ABV% was yet
Well what is it?
Also what was the OG?

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I am not all that concerned with the ABV honestly. It fermented completely. At that point all I would do with it is drink it, dry hop it, add fruit, or blend it.

It isn't hard to do, All you need is more food for the yeast, how you get it in there would be based on the style

Just add some table sugar (sucrose) and you'll be plenty happy.

I would recommend against adding table sugar. It will dry out your beer if you add enough to up the ABV. There is also the possibility it will throw your whole beer out of balance.

Your best bet is to post the recipe and tweak it for next time.

janivar123 said:

I noticed that not one has asked what the ABV% was yet
Well what is it?
Also what was the OG?

Click to expand...

I never asked what the existing alcohol level was because it wasn't relevant. The OP wanted to up it a bit (regardless of what it was). My advice is just what most of everyone else' was. Don't mess with it, tweak the next batch.

How did you determine that the beer had a lower ABV than you wanted? Was it based on the og-fgX131 calculation, or did you go by the potential alcohol scale? Or did you go by what the kit recipe said the gravity will be?

We get this question daily, and usually the new brewer has either use the potentional alcohol scale, which doesn't really work for beer and which we don't use, or they got a scewed original gravity due to the difficulty in integrate the wort with the top off water. Neither of these are accurate ways to determine what the abv of the beer is.

Please post the recipe.

+1 on just tweaking the next batch (I have had two batches come out with a significantly lower ABV than I wanted, but oh well, that just means I need to make more beer! One of them is actually quite pleasant, the other one was wrecked -- though still drinkable, just not very good -- due to completely unrelated factors)

That said, if you want to add booze to it, I think it would depend a lot on the style. I would not do it with pretty much any light-colored or crisp-tasting beer, but if it's a porter, for example, a little bourbon or scotch or something might actually be pretty tasty, I would imagine.

Plus that, people here haven't heard of a boilermaker?

Your best bet is to not do anything with it, and just make the beer you want next time. If you are bound and determined, you could ferment it more by adding some sugar or some dry malt extract or something, or depending on the style you could try adding alcohol (though as others said, I would do it in small batches or even at serving time, in case it turns out to be nasty).

Oh lord, a boilermaker! THAT should give you a little hangover (grin).

It would be similar to "needlebeer"! During prohibition, production of non-alcoholic beer was still permitted (it's how yuengling stayed in business). It was called near-beer and when it was spiked with hard liquor via a syringe in the cork, it was deemed "needle-beer"!

interesting. Didn't know that at all. Couldn't have tasted very good, but I suppose the point was to get the buzz.