sugar?

[gcobb74]

Making a wheat tonight I typically do one week primary then the next in a secondary and add 2.5 lbs of frozen fruit as test batches. I want to boost the abv%. When do I add sugar to the wort and what type of sugar? Table? How much and has anyone gotten this down so it doesnt make it too sweet?

Thanks!

 

[gcdowd]

Sugar will actually dry out a beer, not make it sweeter. The sugar will ferment out fully, lending a drier beer

 

[unionrdr]

I add a pound of demerara sugar to my Partial mash IPA's. Gives a little color & flavor complexity besides just abv.

 

[gcobb74]

what other ways do I have to boost abv? I have an extra batch of beer (wheat simple recipe) I want to experiment with. Last time I made it abv was around 4.3 can I get that to 5 without killing the taste of the beer? I plan to add raspberries in the secondary.

Thanks for your help guys!

 

[McCoy]

You can add it more or less at any point in the boil. Some people may have opinions as to when is ideal, but I don't know it matters much. You can also add it during fermentation. The idea here is that the yeast will use whatever the most metabolically available sugar is, and if they eat too much sucrose early on then they might not produce enough enzymes to fully ferment the maltose, but unless this already a high gravity brew then I wouldn't worry about it.

As for boosting ABV in general, there's no reason you couldn't just as more malt/extract to raise your original gravity.

 

[Effingbeer]

Alcohol comes from fermented sugars, so that's pretty much what you have to work with. There's different kinds of sugar: Either increase your grain bill for more maltose or you could use DME. Or corn sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar.
Just remember that "white" sugars will just make alcohol, so they won't add to flavor profile and can lighten the beer up; they "dry out" a beer by diluting the existing residual sugars with alcohol.
The myth that using white sugars causes off flavors is based in folks not having good temp control and adding a ton of sugar. More sugar makes the yeast work harder and creates more heat- the snowball effect.