Upping the ABV & keeping the balance

[BelligerentOwl]

Beginner extract brewer moving from kit to designing my own.

I've gathered that if I want to kick up the ABV, adding LME or DME will do the job without thinning or drying it out by adding sugars or honey. My assumption is that to keep the balance of the recipe, I would have to add hops.

1) Am I correct on these points?
2) Is there a rough formula/ratio for the added extract/hops to keep a balance?
3) Am I adding bittering hops at the start, aroma hops at the end, both, or is it just a matter of taste like most things in brewing seem to be?

Cheers!

 

[zgja2]

We would need much more information to answer these questions. What base recipe are you starting with? What are you trying to achieve? what style of beer are you brewing? Recipes are usually built using software such as beersmith or brewers friend. Are you employing software?

 

[dmtaylor]

1) Yes

2) There's such a thing as BU:GU ratio. This is IBUs divided by gravity points or units (GU), which are typically just the last two digits of the original gravity, e.g., 1.065 has 65 GUs. So, if you have 65 IBUs and the starting gravity is 1.065, the BU:GU ratio is 1.0. In general, a BU:GU ratio of about 0.5-0.6 is considered to be "well balanced" between malt and hops, while a BU:GU ratio of 1.0 is very common for pale ales and IPA, and low hopped styles like hefeweizen would be really low on the scale closer to like 0.2 or something like that. So the overall range for most styles is about 0.2 to 1.0, although you could go a little higher towards 1.2 for the craziest imperial IPAs. Bottom line: When changing any malt bill, it is wise to calculate the BU:GU ratio of the original recipe, and then bump up your IBUs in the adjusted ratio to keep the BU:GU ratio constant.

3) You can of course add extra hops up front, or at the end of the boil, as a matter of taste, but try to get your BU:GU ratio to match the original. Or don't. It really is all just a matter of taste.

Great questions. Hope this helps.

 

[ncbrewer]

This article discusses GU:BU ratio http://finnhillbrewing.blogspot.com/2011/04/bugu-ratios.html

 

[brewbama]

If you will look at Biermuncher's recipes you'll see that he always includes a graph to show where the IBU fall for a given gravity. It's a pretty good visualization of the BU:GU ratio

 

[BelligerentOwl]

Dave,

Just what I was looking for! Thanks so much!

 

[BelligerentOwl]

I think that dmtaylor's response was kind of what I was looking for. It does look like using software as you mentioned will be helpful as well and easily enable me to figure the ratio for a particular recipe. I will be able to see the IBUs and OG of an original recipe, see how my tweaks to the extract effect each and target the same ratio.

Thanks for your response!

 

[sendai]

I've gathered that if I want to kick up the ABV, adding LME or DME will do the job without thinning or drying it out by adding sugars or honey.

My 2 cents:

The easiest way to keep increase ABV without affecting the balance is by adding sugar.

Adding sugar does not thin out your beer significantly. That's a common incorrect belief. (Substituting malt with sugar does thin out both flavor and body. But that's not what you are asking about.)

 

[kh54s10]

My 2 cents:

The easiest way to keep increase ABV without affecting the balance is by adding sugar.

Adding sugar does not thin out your beer. That's a common incorrect belief. (Substituting malt with sugar does thin out both flavor and body. But that's not what you are asking about.)

Adding sugar will dry out the beer. Most people will perceive that drier beer as tasting thinner. Though I agree that it is not really thinner.

IMO adding sugar with just the intention to increase the ABV is not a good idea. It is much better to choose a recipe that is designed for a higher ABV or adjust the entire recipe for higher ABV. I wouldn't even add malt extracts to just "increase the ABV" I would still change the entire recipe.

 

[ncbrewer]

Adding sugar will dry out the beer. Most people will perceive that drier beer as tasting thinner. Though I agree that it is not really thinner.

I agree that adding sugar shouldn't reduce the amount of unfermented sugars in the final beer, but with more alcohol in the mix, the SG will be a little lower. I wouldn't expect that to affect the perceived dryness, but when I've done it, it seemed to taste drier. I've discussed this with others, and they also think some added sugar dries the beer out. Maybe it's confirmation bias.

 

[kh54s10]

I agree that adding sugar shouldn't reduce the amount of unfermented sugars in the final beer, but with more alcohol in the mix, the SG will be a little lower. I wouldn't expect that to affect the perceived dryness, but when I've done it, it seemed to taste drier. I've discussed this with others, and they also think some added sugar dries the beer out. Maybe it's confirmation bias.

I am not sure of the make-up of the beer but people often use added sugar to "dry out the beer". It makes sense that the unfermentable sugars are not decreased so it should taste more alcoholic but the same as far as degree of sweetness goes??? Perception?

 

[BelligerentOwl]

"IMO adding sugar with just the intention to increase the ABV is not a good idea. It is much better to choose a recipe that is designed for a higher ABV or adjust the entire recipe for higher ABV. I wouldn't even add malt extracts to just "increase the ABV" I would still change the entire recipe."

That's where my interest in a ratio comes in. It seem that will allow me to "scale up" (or down) the ABV of a recipe of interest and maintain a balance.

 

[CraigCoBrewing]

Just the thread I was looking for! I have brewed one batch of Belgian Ale from a True Brew extract kit and it turned out good after I let it bottle condition for a full month, but it's only 6.5 ABV. I'm shooting for something closer to Victory Golden Monkey @ 9.5. I'm gradually building up an inventory of ingredients such as DMEs, Belgian candy sugar, Corriander, and such. It stands to reason that if you raise your OG significantly, then hops and pitch rate should be raised proportionately. I like the fact that the GM is a big beer, but doesn't taste highly alcoholic. I just got the Beersmith2 software, but it looks like there will be a significant learning curve on that. I have 2 more of the same True Brew kits, but want to study this a bit more before I take the plunge into Frankenstein territory. My plan is to achieve the same balance with a 9+ ABV and add .5 oz of cracked corriander.

Thanks to all who replied on this thread for sharing your experience. Your contributions are invaluable to us newbies, and very much appreciated!