Hi there, my name is Charlie. I’m the general manager here at Northern Brewer Saint Paul retail
location. One of the questions that we get asked most commonly in our store here is how to modify
some of our existing beer kits we have back there. Whether it's adding a new yeast or some
different hops or some fruit puree, people want to make small twists to kind of change
the recipe up and make it their own. One of the biggest questions we get asked, though,
is how to boost the gravity of the beer to get more alcohol content out of it. So,
since I remember being a new brewer and being pretty clueless about how to do things like that,
we thought we'd take a minute to show you some examples about how we would recommend doing it.
Just about any beer style can be made bigger or imperialized. Now,
that’s not to say all styles should be, or that it’s a one-size-fits-all solution for doing so.
The bottom line here is that if you want higher alcohol content, you likely want a higher original
gravity for your beer; for that you need to add more fermentable sugar -- either in the form of
additional malt or other sugars. There are a few options we’ll walk you through later on.
However, the other, almost more important topic we’ll cover is maintaining balance -- because
you can’t just throw whatever amount you want in so we’ll discuss balance throughout the video.
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So, the most obvious option for increasing the original gravity of your beer is to add more malt.
Malt is the main source for fermentable sugar in beer. So it makes sense that by adding more of it,
we’ll get more gravity in the wort and thus more alcohol in the final beer.
This is applicable to both extract and all-grain brewers.
For extract brewers, just add more liquid or dry malt extract, but don’t go overboard and just grab
a giant jug of syrup and pour it all in without figuring out what gravity you are aiming for.
This is where brewing software becomes super handy because you tell it exactly what gravity
you’ll get as you scale up the malt additions. We run through an example in just a few minutes.
For all-grain brewers just add more malt -- likely your base malt, but depending on what
you're making and how much you're adding you may also want to scale some specialty malts.
The other obvious addition to boost gravity is adding sugars.
This could be a rabbit hole of its own because there’s a whole lot of different sugars and they
each bring their own unique flavor. You could add sucrose or table sugar, corn sugar, brown sugar,
Belgian candi sugar or syrup, even honey or the maple syrup you have sitting around. Any of these
sources will give you a boost in gravity. But they might also impart flavors to the final beer
so make sure that they blend well with whatever style you're making.
Take table sugar versus molasses. Table sugar will ferment fairly clean, almost flavorless.
Whereas molasses will impart a dark, roasty, almost burned sugar quality to the beer. While the
sugar you choose is important here, so is the fact that sugar will probably ferment out completely,
which will help boost the ABV but will also give you a thinner,
more watery mouthfeel. Remember that balance we mentioned earlier?
A newer product that might help you avoid an overly thin or dry beer
is brewer’s crystals. This is a powder which consists of corn syrup and glucose solids,
similar to malt extract in its fermentation profile. It can
be used to increase alcohol content while maintaining mouthfeel and body.
Another way to increase ABV is to ferment the beer to a lower final gravity. Perhaps
by choosing a more attenuative yeast. Perhaps by increasing fermentation temperature a bit.
All-grain brewers can also create a more fermentable wort by mashing at a lower
temperature. However, this can also leave the beer more dry so you might want to adjust the
grain bill to include more percentage of specialty grains that give the beer body.
As you can see, with every option for increasing your gravity
you'll also have to consider keeping the balance of the beer in mind.
When we talk about balance here we mean things like bitterness, we mean things like maltiness,
the overall mouthfeel. When we design our kits here we have a balance in mind for them already.
So, as you're making changes you want to make sure you're keeping the "new balance" in mind.
Bitterness is possibly the most important element of balance to consider when intentionally boosting
the alcohol content of a beer. Because as you increase fermentable sugar in the form of malt
or sugar additions, you could be decreasing the effect and utilization of the hops from
the original recipe. The amount of hops you use might also need to be scaled up.
If you add more malt or sugar to the equation and don’t adjust hopping levels, you could
end up with a beer that is way more malty and sweet and less bitter than you’re expecting.
Again, the easiest way to achieve this is to run the recipe and your modifications
through brewing software such as BeerSmith,
being sure to adjust hops for IBUs throughout the recipe as you scale up the gravity.
Also note that if you increase the gravity using more simple sugars -- like sucrose
or honey -- the beer might actually ferment lower or drier than you’d normally expect,
so this will also affect the overall body and mouthfeel of the beer. For this reason it’s
best practice to bump gravity using a malt source versus a bunch of sugar. The amount
of specialty malts might even need to change to prevent a beer from becoming too dry or thin.
We want to show you an example using our popular Chinook IPA recipe kit and BeerSmith.
This is about to get pretty nerdy with a lot of numbers
illustrating the point that the changes you're making affect the overall balance of the beer.
First we’ll note that most beer styles have a target bitterness ratio -- that is,
a preferred range of bitter to gravity to achieve an expected balance for the style.
The bitterness ratio for an American IPA is about 0.6 - 1.2.
The bitterness ratio for an American Double IPA is about 0.7 - 1.7.
So, fairly similar but something to keep in mind as we look at these different scenarios.
Let’s look at the numbers. When you enter all the ingredients into BeerSmith for Chinook IPA,
you see our OG is 1.048 and FG is 1.012. 64 IBUSs. Color of 9.9 SRM. The beer should be
about 4.7% ABV with a bitterness ratio of 1.27. That is our base beer example. We chose this one
because it's one of our more popular IPA kits, it's included in our starter kit,
and it's generous to call it an IPA at 4.7% alcohol. It's really more like a hoppy pale ale.
Still a great beer but a good candidate to bump up the gravity on it.
Now, let’s say you add one pound of corn sugar to this recipe and adjust nothing else.
You see the original gravity increases to 1.056, the final gravity lowers a bit to 1.010,
and IBUs drop to 58 -- because in this case we haven’t added any additional hops to
make up for the added fermentables. Between the higher OG and lower FG,
we’ve added more than one percent of alcohol. And you’ll notice the bitterness ratio went down a
bit to 1.031. Because corn sugar is neutral and clear, the beer color was not affected.
Here’s what happens when you add two pounds of corn sugar and adjust nothing
else in the recipe. OG is higher; FG is even lower. IBUs drop further, and the bitterness
ratio is way off from the original. The beer is now more than two percent higher in ABV
at 7.1%, just below the style guidelines range for Double IPA alcohol content.
Let’s look at what happens when you use some dry malt extract instead of corn sugar.
Here is the Chinook IPA plus one extra pound of Pilsen DME. The original gravity went up,
but so did the final gravity. The color of the beer was made just a bit darker,
probably negligible to the eye, but worth mentioning. The IBUs are down a bit. The
bitterness ratio is also skewed a bit. The beer is bumped up about one percent in ABV,
but will also likely finish heavier on the palate with that higher final gravity.
One last example of an unadjusted recipe, then we’ll show you a more balanced one.
This is the Chinook IPA with an extra two pounds of Pilsen DME.
The OG is way up, but so is the FG. IBUS are way down and the bitterness ratio
is way off from the original recipe. This is not the beer you are looking for.
Quick pause to recap; that was a lot. If you're increasing
your gravity by adding any kind of fermentable you're achieving your goal
of upping your ABV. But unless you change other parts of the recipe -- namely
bitterness -- you're going to end up with a completely different beer. Let's fix that.
Here is a look at my Balanced Imperialized Chinook IPA. I took the base kit and added
an extra pound of both corn sugar and Pilsen DME. I adjusted the hops by increasing the 60 minute
addition by half-ounce -- thus increasing bitterness. There’s also an additional
quarter-ounce at 10 minutes and just before flame-out; and an additional ounce for dry
hopping. Our gravity increase resulted in a 6.9% ABV beer -- more than a two-point
jump from the original. Increased IBUs keep the bitterness ratio intact along with other numbers.
In this case though I would also pitch two packages of yeast and yeast nutrient to help
the yeast along the way. And, consider reducing the initial fermentation temperature if possible,
because more sugar means more active fermentation, which means more heat. Finally, I suggest reducing
your consumption because drinking a 7% beer is much different than drinking a beer under 5% ABV.
And there you have it. A not so quick look at how to adjust your gravity and increase your
ABV. The whole point really is that there are a lot of different options out there for you,
and you have to keep in mind a) what your goal is and b) what the original balance of the beer
was. Even after doing this video and scripting it and shooting it we realized that in our Chinook
examples, if you add the sugar at the end of the boil rather than the beginning of the boil
it would adjust the IBUs differently. When I was a new brewer and I was first tweaking some of our
recipe kits I made some uninformed choices. Some of them luckily turned out pretty well,
and some of them didn't really turn out very well. So, the whole point of this video
is to say that the choice is yours in the changes you make to increase your gravity.
But, the more educated your choices are -- keeping in mind the balance of the beer and
changing other things with the gravity -- the more success you will likely have with your final beer.
Again, if you want to see more FAQ and technique videos from us here, be sure
to like this video, then subscribe and hit “all notifications” so you’ll see what we post next.
As always, if you have any question about recipe design or beer kit modifications
feel free to contact us at brewmaster@northernbrewer.com.
Cheers!