Kit power-up

gazzaseventy · Sep 19, 2012

Afternoon all.Just made my first brew from a kit and was wondering if theres any way i can achieve a higher ABV?,anything i can add or any deviations from the instructions on the kit.

simo72 · Sep 19, 2012

Hi mate, it is easy to achieve a higher ABV, just had more sugar tho this does take some of body away from the brew making it thinner however you can add extra malt extract either dried or liquid for the same effect whilst retaining the body. You could also reduce the volume of your brew by brewing it to say 20 litres instead of the standard 23.
Hope this helps

gazzaseventy · Sep 19, 2012

Thanks for that Simo,how much malt extract should i add?

simo72 · Sep 19, 2012

Hi mate,
I would suggest adding extra spay malt(dried), most 1 can kits ask for 1kg of extra sugar or malt extract or beer kit enhancer (whichever you prefer) that will take it to the stated ABV on the kit, the kit itself contains around 1.5kg of malt which contains probably 1.2kg fermentable sugar so thats 2.2kg of sugars for the yeast so if you add 10% extra sugar 220g you should get 10% extra ABV approx so if the kit says 5% that would take it to 5.5%. Potentially you can put as much as you want but youd end up with tennents super

or even barley wine, up to the maximum that the yeast can achieve which is probably around 14% which i wouldnt want to drink lol
I would suggest adding extra dried spray malt up to an extra 500g should be fine tho I personally brew short i.e. only doing a kit to 20 litres cos you keep more of even get better flavour from your brew which I think is what its all about : cheers:

Davybarman · Sep 19, 2012

Hi two best things you can do is

Brew short to 21 litres
Swap sugar for brew enhancer or dme or mix of brewing sugar and dme.

Also keep the temps at around 18 to 20 degrees and leave around 2 weeks in the fv.

No peeking now :nono:

You are better of not adding extra sugar fermenyables at this stage.

Good luck. These are my thoughts mayb others have better ideas

ScottM · Sep 19, 2012

Davybarman said:
Hi two best things you can do is

Brew short to 21 litres
Swap sugar for brew enhancer or dme or mix of brewing sugar and dme.

Also keep the temps at around 18 to 20 degrees and leave around 2 weeks in the fv.

No peeking now :nono:

You are better of not adding extra sugar fermenyables at this stage.

Good luck. These are my thoughts mayb others have better ideas

Swapping for brew enhancer or any sort of DME mix would actually give less ABV due to the DME being less fermentable than sugar. If using DME always add at least 20% more just to atain the figure that the kit says it's measured for. If you want more then you need to increase again.

RobWalker · Sep 19, 2012

enhancer will up it without affecting the body or bitterness. too much dme and it'll be malty. too much sugar and it'll be thin and bitter. make sure you mix it in the packet first if you intend to use less than a bag :)

jonnymorris · Sep 20, 2012

Have you seen the Brewferm kit range? They're Belgian style and therefore designed to be stronger. I made a couple a while ago and they were pretty good.