Brewing with more grains for higher ABV?

[mortox]

I want to do a typical 5 gal batch but instead of getting say 5.5ABVish from this recipe i would like to get around 7-8.

Could i make this happen in a 6 gal wort or would i need more water?

7 lbs. pale ale malt
2 lbs. victory
.5 crystal 60L
.25 chocolate

^^ is the normal recipe

 

[Clonefarmer]

I want to do a typical 5 gal batch but instead of getting say 5.5ABVish from this recipe i would like to get around 7-8.

Could i make this happen in a 6 gal wort or would i need more water?

7 lbs. pale ale malt
2 lbs. victory
.5 crystal 60L
.25 chocolate

^^ is the normal recipe

You don't need to raise the volume to raise ABV. You can just add more base grain. Probably a few pounds depending on your efficiency. Adding more base grain will change the beer. You may find the hops need adjusting because of the higher gravity.

 

[wolverinebrewer]

You don't need to raise the volume to raise ABV. You can just add more base grain.

Or, boil it down so it's more concentrated. This gives you a higher SG.
Increasing the volume like you suggested dilutes the wort. That would give you the opposite effect of what you are trying to do.

 

[shelly_belly]

5.5 to 7.5 is a 27% increase, so try

8# 14oz pale ale malt
2# 9oz victory
10oz crystal 60l
5oz chocolate

 

[djonas]

If you have a really small operation going, you could try adding some malt extract to bump up the ABV. As mentioned above you may want to also increase the IBU's to balance the malts out. You may think about keeping the IBU/ABV ration the same.

For example,

22 IBU/5.5 ABV = 4 IBU/ABV.

So solving the next equation for "x," which represents our unknown IBU,

x/7.5 ABV = 4 IBU/ABV
x = (4 IBU/ABV)(7.5 ABV)
x = 30 IBU.

We get an IBU that keeps the IBU/ABV ratio identical.