Upping a weak drop late in the game

[SeeFar]

So I've made a hoppy pale, which tastes half decent however it's only about 3.8 ABV (wasn't paying attention when I added the water....)

I'd like to increase the ABV to around 5, if possible. I have another fermenter I can drain into. Would it be advisable to boil up some Dex or something else and pop into the second fermenter before I drain the wort into it? Would this work to up the booze points some and balance my beer out or are there consequences that I'm not aware of?

Whilst I'm on the subject, could I also pop in a little bit of hops to that sugar solution to add a little more fruit flavour at the same time?

Sorry if a dumb question, I'm still pretty low on the (stupid) learning curve here.

 

[manticle]

If you add sugar, it will up abv once fermented but will also alter the balance.

Other alternatives are malt extract or blend stronger ag wort (if ag)

Yes- you can add hops

 

[wereprawn]

What you propose will work. In a separate pot make up a small extract/water solution to around 1.040, bring to the boil and add hops of your choice, boil for 10 minutes to extract desired bitterness, take off heat and chill immediately in an ice bath in the sink, add to fermentor, leaving most of the hop debris behind. If you want a little more hop flavour, add more hops when you take the solution off the heat and put the lid on for 5 minutes to steep, then chill but remember, the more hops you add the more liquid they will absorb and steeping will add more bitterness too. Remember to account for the extra volume into the fermentor when calculating the extra IBU's.Then add your seperate , stronger extract solution to the fermentor.

 

[SeeFar]

Great advice, thank you.

Regards calculating ABV, I gather I do another reading after I’ve combined the new ingredients and then do the final reading as per usual and try and nut it out from there?

 

[SeeFar]

I went with 600ml of water, 330gm of dry LME and a bunch of hops.

Bottled a little of the original wort in case I screwed it all up.