adding extra sugar to a wort kit ?

[mongey]

so I have been brewing some of the brewers selection 15l fresh wort kits. have been getting good results with them

I do find them slightly weaker than I like my beers. with the 5 litres of water added to make the 20 litres most start about 1038 and finish 1006 at around 4% alcohol . I did one the the other week that had a SG of 1036 .pretty low

I know I could add less water but I like to make the most of a batch . 20L fills allot more longnecks than 15L does


If i wanted to bump the alcohol up to 5% to 6% how much sugar rougly would I look to add to a 20l batch ? I'm guessing I'd want my SG in the 1048 range ? also no idea what kind of sugar I would add ? I'm happy to buy good stuff

 

[scon]

When you say weaker do you only mean alcohol percentage or are you also talking about body. Adding sugar will increase alcohol but decrease the body - drying out the beer.

 

[Blind Dog]

I wouldn't just add sugar as it would dramatically change the profile of the final beer. Can't you simply buy a higher ABV fresh wort kit?

 

[mongey]

yeah I was talking alchohol content but good to know its a bad idea

I'll try a little less water on the next one and see how it goes

 

[mosto]

You could try adding 500g-1kg of Dry Malt Extract. This would increase your ABV, without reducing body as much as sugar would. I'd boil it up with your 5L water addition, mainly to kill of any nasties that may be there, but you could also add hops while boiling to add to the flavour.

 

[Blind Dog]

You could try adding 500g-1kg of Dry Malt Extract. This would increase your ABV, without reducing body as much as sugar would. I'd boil it up with your 5L water addition, mainly to kill of any nasties that may be there, but you could also add hops while boiling to add to the flavour.

Thats a much better idea than just adding sugar, but again you could be changing the profile of the beer (albeit less so than simply adding sugar) unless you're careful. The big advantage of your idea in my book is that the OP could start to play around with hops and different malt extracts to pimp up the kits.

A higher ABV FWK is still (IMO) a simpler answer, but a lot less fun...

 

[mongey]

yeah I want to start playing around a bit soon . I have done 8 or 9 FWK's now and I have that side of it down .no infections, no bombs, good drinkable beer

just getting a brew fridge set up this weekend . wanna do a couple lagers from FWK's just to see how it goes then get a little more involved in the process

 

[stux]

I'd just boil up 500g of Light Dry Malt in a few L of water, Coopers brand is sold in most supermarkets.

Good time to add any extra hops.

Or perhaps, its now a good time to look into BIAB. With no-chill you essentially make your own cubes. You could make them higher gravity, or go with a bigger cube and do 20-23L straight off the bat.

 

[TheWiggman]

What about 2 x FWK, split it so you have 23 or so litres, and boil it down to 20l? If they're hopped kits though this will affect late hop additions and bitterness. If not, stronger beer with all the flavour. Alternatively just boil down a portion (say 8l down to 5l) and top up the fermenter.
Actually that sounds messy. Why don't you grab an urn, a bag...