Altering Cherry Stout Recipe

I plan on brewing to brew a Midwest recipe: Nightcap Cherry Stout. I am brewing this for some friends, but they are wanting it to be a little higher in alcohol. I would like to adjust the quantity of the ingredients to achieve a higher SG. The SG is estimated to be about 1.044 and I would like to get it to about 1.055.

Here is the recipe that I am starting with:
6 lb. Dark liquid malt extract
4 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Caramel 80L
4 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains
1 oz. Fuggle
1/2 oz. Willamette pellet hops
4 oz. Cherry extract

I plan on using a 1.5L starter of the Wyeast London Ale (1028).

Here are the changes I am thinking about:
2 lbs more of Dark liquid malt extract
4 oz more of the Chocolate Malt
0.5 oz more of the Fuggle hops
and I am replacing the cherry extract with 2lbs of Oregon Cherry Puree which will be added to the secondary fermenter.

I am looking for any feedback from more experienced brewers. So, should my alterations work out well?

I would not use extra LME to boost your gravity, as it doesn't really come in one pound containers. I would throw in one pound of Dried Malt Extract to raise your gravity. This will bring you to an SG of 1.054. Two pounds of LME will bring you to about 1.059 so you'll be over shooting your SG, plus its hard to measure out two pounds of LME from any container with more than two pounds.

You will want more cherry than 2 lb of the puree... I would go with at least 5. I used 5 lb of Oregon cherries for mine (I just used the Midwest cream stout recipe and added the cherries), and it has just a hint of cherry.

Kammee,

Thank you for your reply. I will go with an extra lb of DME and give that a try. I had originally thought about using DME, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out, so I thought I would try sticking with the ingredients already present in the recipe.

I had originally planned 3lbs of cherry puree, but I will toss in 5 lbs. I had chosen 2 lbs because I've used their raspberry puree in the past and I've used 3lbs and it was almost too much for the beers I've used them in. The wife and friends loved the flavor, but it was too much raspberry for my tastes. I guess I made a bad assumption that the cherry puree would be as intense as the raspberry.

Thanks again for the info!

Well, the puree may be stronger, I'd seek opinions on that specifically because I haven't used it. However... stout is roasty and you'll need to cut through some of that to taste the cherry. Three pounds of puree may very well be enough now that I think about it because you don't have pits and its more concentrated. I would think though that cherry would be less powerful than the raspberry puree.