Alcohol levals?

If I want to rase the alcohol leval in my beer do I just need to use more of a sugar source like more malt, or i.e. honey? And by doing that do I need to pitch more yeast or will a standard amount of yeast be enough?

I'm not looking to make a super strong beer just wanting to make a lighter pale or golden with alittle more alcohol like a stanard IPA or pale ale.

looking to rase to a 6-7% as opposed to the 4-5% I have been getting from using the standard amount of 2 cans of malt extract per 5 gallons of beer.

thanks

Rather than trying to boost the alcohol level of a beer, why not just pick recipes that are in the ABV range you want? You'll come out with better beer in the end. Just dumping sugar into the wort to try to get stronger beer can turn a good beer into crap.

You can add more malt, and you will get more malt flavor as a result, and you will get some more alcohol to a point. Malt extract (especially the canned stuff) is only partially fermentable, so the amount of residual sugars will increase as you add more to your recipe, resulting in a sweeter finished beer.

The other choice is to add simple sugars instead of malt. Sugars such as sucrose and dextrose are more or less 100% fermentable. Adding too much will have the result of thinning out the beer too much, making a thin albeit boozy beer. But to get a 6-7% beer you should be fine adding a pound, maybe two of sugar without too much problem.

1 pound of sucrose (table sugar) in a 5-gallon batch will give you an additional 1.2% alcohol by volume.

1 pound of dextrose (corn sugar) will give you an additional 0.9% abv.

Give it a shot, see what happens.

Just remember, if you add more malt you'll have to add more hops to keep it balanced.

As mentioned previously, use a recipe for a stronger brew.

thank you very much 2bluewagons I am totaly down with taking chances but why not ask questions?

I am not a recipie guy more of a formula guy. I want to know more about why some levals are higher then others, not just do X to get Z like in a direct recipie.

Thats a great little bit of info and will take note thank you.

DLEE123 said:

I am not a recipie guy more of a formula guy. I want to know more about why some levals are higher then others, not just do X to get Z like in a direct recipie.

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Basically more fermentable sugars = higher alcohol. But as has already been mentioned, just be a little careful on how much you add to a particular formula. You run the risk of throwing the beer out of balance (too thin, not enough bitterness, etc) if you just add sugar/honey/other fermentables.

If you don't want to follow a specific recepie, look over some higher alcohol beer recepies first to get a general idea of the ingredients they use. That way you can best formulate to your particular needs/taste.

Cheers!

Another thing you could try is to adjust your current recipe by either raising all ingredients equally by say 15% or you could use same recipe but make a smaller batch (i.e. 4-41/2 gal instead of 5 gal). This way you keep everything in proportion but raise the OG. If this is not an option, I recommend what others have said, just find a recipe with a higher OG or one that fits the alcohol% profile you are looking for.

Good luck!