i was wondering as i been reading i know that with the diff between the og and the fg will tell you about how much alcohol will be in the beer... now what i was wondering was there any thing i can do in he beginning to make the og become higher so that i can make the beer have a higher % in alcohol ?
og question
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Add more fermentables to your wort, like more base malt or malt extract.
:cross:
In short, your OG is higher by having more "stuff" in it. The only "stuff" that will give you more alcohol, though, are fermentable sugars -- if you put "stuff" that isn't fermentable in it, then both your OG and FG will be higher and the ABV will be the same.
So with beers, that "stuff" is usually your malt extract. Increasing the malt extract -- without changing anything else -- will give you a beer that is stronger, heavier, and sweeter. Typically you would also increase the hops as well, to temper the sweetness, in which case you'd have simply a "bigger" beer: stronger, heavier, more alcoholic.
You can also use various adjuncts to boost the amount of fermentable sugar while keeping a relatively light body to the beer. Simple table sugar will do the job, but for a number of reasons most people recommend against it. I've added non-trivial amounts of honey to a couple of my beers and have had good results with that. In one case, that was with an average-strength beer to give it a lighter body, and in the other case it was to retain a light body while boosting the ABV up to 7% or 8%. Other adjuncts include rice, wheat, etc.
Your best bet if you are just starting out is to just find some recipes for "bigger" beers that sounds appealing to you. If you just say, "I'm going to take this existing recipe, and just dump a bunch of extra sugar in to make it more boozy," you are typically not going to get great results. If you want to tweak your own recipes, you should read about how to do that and probably get some brewing software. But like I say, best bet is to probably just search for pre-existing recipes that are in the ABV range you are after.
Use a pitch rate calculator to figure that out. Generally, beers under 1.055 or so don't need more that a pack of yeast. Over that, more yeast or a starter is a good idea.
Yes, usually. Take a look at this: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
The long and the short of it is, if your OG is too high and you don't pitch enough yeast, you might be okay, or your yeast might get stressed and impart some off flavors, or you might get a stuck fermentation (I've got one of those right now, dammitall...) Better to just pitch in appropriate amounts to begin with.
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well im looking to go with the austin homebrew blue moon kit.. but the thing is i want to make it with a heavier body and a little more orange/citrus flavor and a a stronger alcohol %..... so by adding more of the malt extract and a little more hope ..and might have to add more yeast...
now while im on the subject .... if i want to make it more orange/citrus .. i saw that ahb sells .. sweet and bitter orange peals... now how much of that should i use.. should i use .. never used them so i dont know how strong that stuff is.. and shoudl i just use the bitter or sweet peels or shoudl i use a little of both?
now while im on the subject .... if i want to make it more orange/citrus .. i saw that ahb sells .. sweet and bitter orange peals... now how much of that should i use.. should i use .. never used them so i dont know how strong that stuff is.. and shoudl i just use the bitter or sweet peels or shoudl i use a little of both?
You're basically describing a Grand Cru. If I were you, I'd search for some Grand Cru recipes, compare them to the AHS kit you are using, and make your tweaks based on that. You'll probably want to add more malt/wheat extract, honey, and probably up the hops just a liiittle (though not much with that style) to balance out the extra sweetness from the extract.
Actually, I sorta a similar thing, bumping up the alcohol and coriander a bit on a Grand Cru recipe... the flavor is pretty good, but that's the one I have a #*! stuck fermentation on right now! The recipe was fine, I think, I just waaaay underpitched. Grumble grumble...)
Doesn't AHS sell a 1% abv booster? I thought I read something about that on Here somewhere.
Alexanders Sun Country makes those 1.4# 'kickers'. Those work great. Use a brew calculator to figure out hops, yeast and the like for the 'beefed up' kit.
Alexanders Sun Country makes those 1.4# 'kickers'. Those work great. Use a brew calculator to figure out hops, yeast and the like for the 'beefed up' kit.
You can use software such as beersmith to automatically compute the additional fermentables to add to your boil in order to arrive at a target ABV. This is nice because it will also show the impact on IBU and color.
