Increase ABV of a All Grain

[John Nicolac]

Hi All,
I am about to brew my 1st All Grain Beer this weekend in my new Brewzilla.
I went to my local homebrew shop and got a American Pale Ale kit (Sierra Nevada Clone suposedly) .
The Kit came with the required Grains, Hops and Yeast and a Brew card .
This card lists it is for a 20 Ltr Batch and ABV should be about 4.7% .
I want to know if i can bump up that ABV slightly to aroun 5% with use of Dextrose ?.
Not aure if this can be done and if so at what stage do i add the sugars into the All Grain Mix (or during fermenataion stage ???)
Any thoughts on wether this can be done or if it will detract from the beer or ruin it would be good to know also.

Thanks in Advance

 

[razz]

You certainly can John, or you can just use some plain sugar. You won't need much for the extra 3% abv. Maybe 250-300 grams. You can put it in at the end of the boil. Take about a litre of wort from the kettle and dissolve the sugar into it and then stir that back into the kettle. Are you using any brewing software?

 

[MHB]

You want an extra 0.3% ABV in 20L, from %ABV = Change in gravity / 7.5, 0.3*7.5=Change, 2.25 or add 0.00225 to your OG.
Convert to Plato rearrange SG=(4*oP)/1000+1 and we get 0.5625oP. or 0.5625/100 as oP is a %
As oP is %WW extract in solution we can use
Mass Extract = V*SG*oP, =20*1.00225*(0.5625/100) = 0.1127kg
or 112.7g. That assumes a fully fermentable pure sugar (i.e. Sucrose, Maltose...)
Dextrose is 91% sugar (solids) balance water so
112.7/0.91 = 123.9g of dextrose.
I'd call it 125g and dam the extra alcohol.
Mark

 

[razz]

Yep, thanks for fixing my mistake Mark.

 

[MHB]

0.3% is so little I CBA making the adjustment, probably just grab a pint glass instead of a schooner. ~250g was the first number that popped into my mind to.
But the way my head works I have to check, far from correcting a mistake, just cant help playing around with the process.
Mark

 

[John Nicolac]

You certainly can John, or you can just use some plain sugar. You won't need much for the extra 3% abv. Maybe 250-300 grams. You can put it in at the end of the boil. Take about a litre of wort from the kettle and dissolve the sugar into it and then stir that back into the kettle. Are you using any brewing software?

Thanks
I am using Brewfather

 

[John Nicolac]

You want an extra 0.3% ABV in 20L, from %ABV = Change in gravity / 7.5, 0.3*7.5=Change, 2.25 or add 0.00225 to your OG.
Convert to Plato rearrange SG=(4*oP)/1000+1 and we get 0.5625oP. or 0.5625/100 as oP is a %
As oP is %WW extract in solution we can use
Mass Extract = V*SG*oP, =20*1.00225*(0.5625/100) = 0.1127kg
or 112.7g. That assumes a fully fermentable pure sugar (i.e. Sucrose, Maltose...)
Dextrose is 91% sugar (solids) balance water so
112.7/0.91 = 123.9g of dextrose.
I'd call it 125g and dam the extra alcohol.
Mark

Many thanks and much appreciated

 

[Half-baked]

Hi John, given this is your first AG batch, there's a good chance the OG will be different to what the kit says. It'll take time and experience to work out how much grain to use for a particular OG.

And FG is always a guide, how much sugar the yeast will eat depends on a lot of factors.

So my advice is don't get hung up on a particular ABV, treat the first few batches as a learning experience!

 

[elmoMakesBeer]

The advice above is from people more experienced than I am, but I think it's worth pointing out that a very simple way to increase the ABV is to reduce the amount of water you add. If you reduce your batch size from 20 l to about 19 l you should be close enough. Of course, you'll miss out on a litre of beer, and your IBU will be marginally greater.
A rough calc... 4.7% ABV / 5% ABV * 20 l = 18.8 l (~19 l)

As noted by others 0.3% difference in ABV isn't worth losing sleep over. And on your first (or second, third, tenth) all-grain brew there's a good chance you'll end up over- or under-shooting your ABV by more than that.

 

[kadmium]

Quite often those kits are aimed at the 70% eff. Now there are two types of efficiency being mash eff and brew house.

Without going in to war and peace, you won't really have a handle on your efficiency numbers until probably a dozen brews. Then it changes because the LHBS re gapped their rollers or you order somewhere else.

If I were you, I would focus on doing what you consider to be your process. Eliminate as many variable moving forward next time.

There are far more important things to focus on when starting AG than efficiency. If you are aiming for a 5% beer and it comes in at 4.2% sure add some fermentables. If it comes in at 6% because you over boiled, sparged with too little, grain absorbed more than you thought then either dilute it or take it for what it is.

I have brewed on and off for the least 10 years or more, seriously into AG in the last few and on a Guten since March (lock down anyone?)

I am still dialing in my efficiency on my Guten but I have it to around 68% on standard (4 to 7%) beers.

I use the same method each time and make minor adjustments. And then, last week brewed a second batch of an Best Bitter, exact same recipe and method as two weeks before yet I was almost a litre down and OG was up 3 points.

Sometimes things just happen. I noticed I couldn't get to a boil with the big winds so pumped the power and didn't account for evap. Doh.


My advice? Brew the kit but take careful notes of strike volumes, grain weights, sparge volumes, pre boil volumes, post boil volumes, volume into fermenter and volume of trub left.

Also take post mash, pre boil and post boil gravity readings.

Then use these in conjunction with Brewfather or BS or what ever and start tracking your actual efficiencies.

Its your mash and BH efficiency that determines the gravity and therefore the ABV. The home brew shop kits are good, but they don't know your system and as such make them a generic. They probably state 4.7% knowing most brewers may get between 4.5% and 5% due to efficiency variations.

 

[MaggieO]

If you're bottling your priming sugar adds about 0.5%.

 

[John Nicolac]

Thanks All for the info..
I bit the bullet yesterday and had a crakc at my first All Grain and first use of the Brewzilla, it was a first on both so it was trial and error..I plugged in the details of the recepie into brewfather and put in the equiptment and the desired amount i wanted ( 20 litres) . And followed the Brewfather mash , sparge and Boil procedures as close as possible. I learnt a few things along the way and will be better prepared for the next go.
I did notice the mash gpoing through th epump ok and colour was what i expected, but during boil i did notice alot of crud (grain or hop residue, not sure) build up whilst boiling not sure if this is normal, as i said first time using the equiptment and all grain..
I did manage to get the boil ok and wort appeard clear, till i put the chiller in and it stired up some junk, but that settled, i cooled it dowbn and got it into the fermentor..pitched the yeast and now waiting for fermenting to begin..
i did notice the whirfloc has collected alot of proteins, so hopefully it does its job and i come out with a nice clear Pale Ale...
i just need to stop checking the fermenter constantly for signs of life....Oh well heres hoping

 

[MHB]

What you see building up during the boil is "Hot Break" as it cools you form a new bunch of crud called "Cold Break".
Hot break is mostly proteins and tannins, along with the rest of what is on the bottom of the kettle (bits of grain and hops) is called Trub, its good for your beer if that stays in the kettle.
Cold break, unless there is masses of it, which you wont get from decent malt, you can ignore it, its in part a yeast nutrient or it ends up on the bottom of the fermenter along with the yeast when thats finished its job.

If you cant resist looking in the fermenter, you might try covering the top with gladwrap, then you can see in without taking any risk.
As above keep good records and notes and learn from every brew.
Mark

 

[Mooroolbark_Mick]

You want an extra 0.3% ABV in 20L, from %ABV = Change in gravity / 7.5, 0.3*7.5=Change, 2.25 or add 0.00225 to your OG.
Convert to Plato rearrange SG=(4*oP)/1000+1 and we get 0.5625oP. or 0.5625/100 as oP is a %
As oP is %WW extract in solution we can use
Mass Extract = V*SG*oP, =20*1.00225*(0.5625/100) = 0.1127kg
or 112.7g. That assumes a fully fermentable pure sugar (i.e. Sucrose, Maltose...)
Dextrose is 91% sugar (solids) balance water so
112.7/0.91 = 123.9g of dextrose.
I'd call it 125g and dam the extra alcohol.
Mark

I just remembered that I hated Algebra!

 

[MHB]

Well there's a lot more Algebra than Abracadabra in brewing, the case with most things worth doing.
Maths is just a tool box.
Mark

 

[Mooroolbark_Mick]

Well there's a lot more Algebra than Abracadabra in brewing, the case with most things worth doing.
Maths is just a tool box.
Mark

Totally agree MHB - I was just laughing a myself

 

[John Nicolac]

Ok , i think i may have a issue with my First All Grain Attempt.
Today is Day 7 in the fermenter, and it was noticebale that there was not much activity through the air lock bubbling away .
The initial Reading via Refractometer was 1051 , on Day 7 i took another reading on Refrac and the reading is 1026 . It has been 1026 for 3 days now with no change...
Also i take some wort out via the tap and see that it is Very very cloudy and not clear at all... This could be due to the amount of Trub in ferrmentor.. but so far not sure if my 1st attempt will turn out or not.... Its on day 2 of a dry hop at the moment, thinking of leaving for another 2 days then tranfer to another fermentor for a few days....

On that note, it i tranfer to secondary and do a bulk prime at same time, can i still cold crash.. or do i need to cold crash before bilk prime ?

 

[Naboo]

You'll need to use a calculator when using a refractometer if fermentation is underway.
Do you have a hydrometer? You should get an accurate reading from that.

 

[MHB]

Up the top of the page in Brewing Software > Tools> Calculators, scroll down to Refractometer Calculator.
You need to put in the Brix or Plato readings, to get them quick and dirty just divide your points by four, so you OG of 1.051 becomes 51/4=12.75, your FG 1.026 becomes 26/4=6.5.
Shove those in the FG calculator and you get, a corrected FG of 1.011 and 5.44% ABV.
Looks finished to me, the picture shows a pretty good buildup of trub in the bottom of your fermenter, again looks like its done.
You could crash chill, wait a few more days or even just go ahead and transfer, prime and package. How well the beer will clear has a lot to do with the yeast you used, Hefeweizen will take forever to drop out, some yeasts like S-04 and Nottingham will drop like a rock when they are finished, the very popular US-05 is somewhere in-between. For future reference its called Sedimentation, US-05 is called Medium, 04 is High, or fast, so it drops cleaner faster.
Mark

US-05, S-04

 

[John Nicolac]

Cheers, it was a US05 yeat i used ... many thanks again