Beer Forum

I am brewing my 1st batch of beer on Sat. A Big River Brown Ale from MW. I want to boost the alcohol, should I add Belgian candi sugar or DME or both.
Thanks NAZZ

I would a lb DME but I am not that smart.

If it were me, I'd add some DME and make it a "big brown." Either way, you'll end up with a different beer. Not necessarily bad beer, but different beer.

Austin Homebrew makes a product that is a maltose/glucose blend that claims not to affect the body or flavor of a beer. I can't see how, but it's probably your best bet to hitting the original beer style and increasing alcohol at the same time. http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10137

My .2c is that when I want a higher alcohol beer, I brew a style or a proven recipe that's higher alcohol, rather than boosting a lower gravity recipe.

Good luck. Don't worry too much, you'll make beer!! Have fun with your first brew, and welcome to the obsession!!!!

my advice is to brew it as the recipe calls for. if everything goes well, do it again and tweak it. for some reason, many, many new brewers want to brew higher alcohol beers and "boost the alcohol" on everything. but doing such things brings on its own challenges, and things to compensate for. plus, if you don't have a completely successful brew, you're not going to waste all the extra ingredients if you just stick with the original.

Evan Burck wrote:my advice is to brew it as the recipe calls for. if everything goes well, do it again and tweak it. for some reason, many, many new brewers want to brew higher alcohol beers and "boost the alcohol" on everything. but doing such things brings on its own challenges, and things to compensate for. plus, if you don't have a completely successful brew, you're not going to waste all the extra ingredients if you just stick with the original.

+1.

And if you boost the alcohol content, you lose the balance of the original recipe. You should also up the hops a bit so the Bittering Unit/Gravity Unit ratio is the same.

Not to mention that you'll need a bigger pitch of yeast... and if you don't you might run into fermentation issues.

Regardless, I experienced the same thing when starting out.... it was the desire to make every beer "mine". Gotta let it run wild a little bit, took me a few times before I brewed a recipe as written .

i agree with Evan. Concentrat on making a good beer first. Get you flow down. then start tweeking. Cause you can come out with some big F'd up sweet mess that nobody wants to drink. Or some hot boozy shit you wany to pour down the drain. It can get ugly.

+1 - Brew it as the recipe calls for. You'll have enough on your hands without worrying over whether your changes to the recipe help or hurt the outcome.