Low ABV in kits

[KartRacer54]

Seems as if most of the kits offered are rather light in ABV.
Is it reasonable to boost the alcohol level as a general rule by a point or point and a half to around the 6% mark?
When ordering kits I have purchased extra base malts per Beersmith. But sometimes I don't have the extra grains. I have used White sugar and brown sugar as suggested here on the forum with good results but wonder if it would be better to use DME instead. I have a DryDock kit from NB that I want to brew Wednesday and in order to get the ABV to 6% I have to add 1 1/2# of DME and 1/2# of table sugar.
Will this affect the beer flavor. If so is there a better solution or should I not add the extra fermentables to keep the integrity of the kit.
Thanks for your help!

 

[McGarnigle]

Easiest way to do this is to brew the kit to a smaller quantity. Just use less water for, say, a 4 gallon batch. Everything will stay in balance. of course you'll have fewer bottles, but your costs per bottle may not differ much from buying more ingredients and keeping at 5g.

Adding DME is of course better than adding sugar for all but cost. But even adding DME will imbalance the hops and the specialty grain balance.

 

[KartRacer54]

McGarnigle
Don't want to spend the time for smaller batch. You definitely helped my thought process. I put the recipe in beer smith and scaled up to 1.060. That increased all ingredients for the new recipe. I then took the grains back to what I actually have and added 1# DME and 1 pound light brown sugar. That let me keep the hops at proper levels for the new recipe. While I am sure the other grains, increased would be better, I am hoping this will be a one time solution. In the future I will scale up the recipe before I order and add more grains to bring the recipe up to the higher level I prefer. Welcome any input to this solution.
Thanks

 

[chickypad]

For strictly increasing the ABV you can certainly do what you describe, but that doesn't take into consideration that the recipe was formulated to be balanced with a much lower OG. If I understand correctly you needed 2 lbs of sugar/DME to raise a 5 gal batch to 1.060, that means your original recipe must have been in the 1.042 range? I suspect it will now be underbittered. What was the style of beer originally? Personally I would just select a beer with a higher OG from the outset. NB and the other big names have plenty of higher ABV kits. Sorting through NB's site quickly I see 30 IPA's, 5 strong ales, several bigger stouts and a baltic porter, plus a bunch of Belgian ales. Or pick a recipe from the database or elsewhere and order the ingredients yourself.