How to add gravity after fermentation?

Need some advice. Brewed an all grain pale ale yesterday and only hit 1.041 OG instead of 1.052. I finished really late and had to go to sleep! Do I have any options of getting the beer up to .052 at this point?

Thanks
Justin

You can add sugars at any point. Easiest way would be to get some LME/DME and dissolve it in some water, boil and cool (a 5 minute boil is OK), and add. Some big beers are brewed this way, adding extra sugars as fermentation slows down.

If you have 5 gallons of 1.041 you want to get to 1.052, you could dissolve 2.25 lbs of LME (or 1.8 lbs DME) in 4 pints of water and add. It will give you an extra few bottles too.

Calder said:

You can add sugars at any point. Easiest way would be to get some LME/DME and dissolve it in some water, boil and cool (a 5 minute boil is OK), and add. Some big beers are brewed this way, adding extra sugars as fermentation slows down.

If you have 5 gallons of 1.041 you want to get to 1.052, you could dissolve 2.25 lbs of LME (or 1.8 lbs DME) in 4 pints of water and add. It will give you an extra few bottles too.

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2nd this. i've done it before with no ill effects. Also, if you read this:

Homebrew Chef: 120 Minute IPA Clone Recipe

you'll see that he continually adds fermentables throughout fermentation so as not to overwhelm the yeast.

I forgot to mention, you do not want to aerate when you add the extra sugars. Yes, there may be a little splashing, and that's OK, the yeast will scrub that, but make no attempt to aerate.

There goes nothing! I boiled 2lbs of DME in 4 pints of water, cooled and added. I totally forgot how much DME foams up, I almost had a boilover. Wife would have cut my penor off!

I do know why I had such a low OG though, my brewsheet somehow go switched to 5.5 gallons instead of 5, so I actually have 5.5 gallons in my fermenter! I will probably bottle 12 then keg 5 gallons, should work out great.

Thanks and happy new year,
justin

I had the same thing happen when we brewed an IPA on Monday. Is 5 days too late to add LME? I have some in an extract kit that I won at a learn to homebrew day event. It's bubbling away I guess it would just start fermenting some more.

5.5 gallons add 3.3lbs LME.

beernut70 said:

I had the same thing happen when we brewed an IPA on Monday. Is 5 days too late to add LME? I have some in an extract kit that I won at a learn to homebrew day event. It's bubbling away I guess it would just start fermenting some more.

5.5 gallons add 3.3lbs LME.

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It's never too late. It will extend the ferment time. And remember that by adding extra sugars, you are potentially upsetting the balance of the recipe. Just understand what you are doing to the beer/recipe before you do it.

Just lowered the efficiency in Brewtarget on my recipe to what we actually got then added the LME and it looks very balanced. Is this OK to get an idea of what this will do to the beer?

1.048 OG to 1.068 OG

If the recipe was originally designed around a gravity of 1.068 and your mash efficiency just sucked, then it's fine. If the recipe was designed around 1.048, and you are adding an extra 40% fermentables, something is going to be off.