alcohol level in home brew??

just done my 1st home brew (coopers larger) come out ok but it never felt that strong to me as in the alcohol level seemed really low.

think I did add a tad (prob 1 litre to much water) but thought well cant get it out now so carried on brewing it. would 1 litre have that much of an affect on the alcohol level?

does adding more sugar make it a bit stronger?

how do I find out my alcohol level? (in lamens terms please lol) as I don't know the names of equipment or the terminology yet :whistle:

sealover1 said:

just done my 1st home brew (coopers larger) come out ok but it never felt that strong to me as in the alcohol level seemed really low.

think I did add a tad (prob 1 litre to much water) but thought well cant get it out now so carried on brewing it. would 1 litre have that much of an affect on the alcohol level?

does adding more sugar make it a bit stronger?

how do I find out my alcohol level? (in lamens terms please lol) as I don't know the names of equipment or the terminology yet :whistle:

Click to expand...

Typically before you pitch your yeast in your brew you take a gravity reading of the wort with a hydrometer, so typically it will be something between 1040 -1060.. This tells us how many sugars are in the wort, then when it is finished we take another gravity reading again it will be usually below 1014

So say you have a SG of 1040 and finish with 1010 you take the finish away from the start so that leaves 30.. you multiply this by 0.13125 it will give you pretty much 4%.. If you prime you could add approx 0.2% on.. there are calculators on this site which help

You can add sugar, malt extract or both to create more alcohol. Brew enhancer is a mixture of sugar and malt extract. You buy it in 1 kg bags. Just adding sugar will thin the body and reduce maltiness. Adding malt extract will add body and maltiness. Brew enhancer does a bit of both...

Yes adding sugar makes it stronger but it also alters the taste. As well as taste the concentrate has all the nutrients the yeast requires but these could all be used up before all sugar is converted when adding more sugar. With a Scottish Heavy I found using 2kgs of sugar instead of 1kg or 1.5kg depending on make worked quite well. But 2kg sugar in a Bitter made it too bitter and with a Yorkshire Bitter it was very bitter. With a Lager it failed to finish fermenting with 2kg of sugar this may not been because of the sugar but it could be.

I tried mixing a Bitter and Lager kit together with 1.5kg sugar and as much water as I could safely put in fermentor without risking the brew ending up in air lock and it came out well around 7% ABV but the point is it had less not more sugar it was just more concentrated which will clearly raise the ABV.

If you buy an expensive kit it has no sugar added they just give you two cans. It's not as simple as less sugar the better but make it up to 30 instead of 40 pints is the way to increase ABV without making it taste rather bitter.

But consider carefully as when you go to the pub drinking Lager at 2% costs nearly twice as much as drinking half that amount at 4% so we tend to go for strong Lagers to get value for money. Basic fact it's priced per pint not per unit of alcohol. But when home brewing your priced really per unit of alcohol so make it at 2% and you can drink twice as much for the same price as brewing at 4%.

It took it some time for me to realise with home brew low ABV is good you can drink all night and still climb the stairs. There is no need to say I have had 4 pints that's my limit with a low ABV you can drink 6 pints with no problem. And home brew is rather moreish one don't want to stop.

The only limit is size of fermentor if I was to brew at 1.5% ABV and drink 8 pints per night then I would have to be using two fermentors to keep up. This would also need two fridges to brew in, two temperature controllers and a second shed to store it all in.

So in real terms there is a limit also two low an ABV means it will not keep as well and you would have to boil water as not enough alcohol to kill any nasties in the water. At around 8% then it has quite a bitter after taste try drinking Elephant beer. So there is a happy medium.

Alcohol level is found by taking the start s.g. reading and also the finish s.g. reading with a hydrometer and doing some maths or find a web page to do the maths for you. A typical kit with 22 litres of water and 1.5 kg of concentrate and 1 kg of sugar will be around the 3.6% ABV. Add an extra 2 litres then it will be around 3.3% AVB. Take away 2 litres so 20 litres then around 4% ABV. Remove another 2 litres so 18 litres then around 4.4% ABV. Another 2 and at 16 litres around 5% ABV. Go on another 2 litres so 14 litres then around 5.7% ABV.

Again 22 litres with 2kg sugar instead of 1kg and 5.9% ABV but there will be a bitter after taste. These are approx as every can of concentrate has different amount of ferment-able to non ferment-able stuff in it. If you look at the Instructions for Scottish heavy some "Young's" say add 1.5 kg of sugar others "BrewMaker" say add 1 kg of sugar using the same amount of sugar with both they taste very similar.

So yes add more sugar if you want to but not too much I tried with Scottish Heavy and 2.5 kg was too much but it could take 2 kg when the instructions say 1.5 kg. But with Yorkshire Bitter at 2 kg it was far too bitter so all you can do is try it.

Some use other things instead of sugar but then the price goes up as well.

cheers guys that's interesting reading I had to add 1kg of sugar with my cooper one. I keep hearing brew enhancer is this a type of sugar or is it just for what it says enhances the taste? maybe if I add half a kg of brew enhancer that might help with out thinning to much

Buy a hydrometer if you havent got one for an accurate measure for alcohol. You need to take a reading before adding the yeast and another at the end then just stick it in the calculator on here (link is on the menu bar near the top of the page, towards the right).

You said you dont know what things are, it basically floats in the beer and you take a reading at the level of the liquid. My current brew started at 1048 and last reading was 1012 so 4.8% and still going.

sealover1 said:

cheers guys that's interesting reading I had to add 1kg of sugar with my cooper one. I keep hearing brew enhancer is this a type of sugar or is it just for what it says enhances the taste? maybe if I add half a kg of brew enhancer that might help with out thinning to much

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Brew enhancer is a mix of brewing sugar (corn sugar/dextrose, chemically simpler than cane/table sugar) and Spray Malt (also called Dried malt extract or DME), which is a dried out powered form of more of what you got in the tin.

so how much Brew enhancer to add with 1kg of sugar?

sealover1 said:

so how much Brew enhancer to add with 1kg of sugar?

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Well Brew enhancer is 50% sugar itself. It depends on how strong you want your brew.

You could replace the full kg of sugar with a kg of brew enhancer. It might not achieve quite the same abv but will in return have a better body a bit more taste and a bit better head retention.

As a general rule I say the more sugar you can replace with malt extract the better. I personally use dry malt extract.

Malt extract is more expensive in fact it is probably one of teh highest usable ingredients (about £6 for a KG) in home brewing so it depends on how much you're willing to spend.

If you use beer enhancer, you use it to replace sugar, so 1Kg of beer enhancer in place of 1Kg of sugar.

but if it says add 1kg of sugar and Brew enhancer is 50% sugar that's only 1/2kg of sugar so will that not affect the larger end strength?

sealover1 said:

but if it says add 1kg of sugar and Brew enhancer is 50% sugar that's only 1/2kg of sugar so will that not affect the larger end strength?

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Table sugar and corn sugar (dextrose) are almost 100% coverable to ethanol. DME is between 70% and 75% converable, depending on a large number of factors.

So the answer is that using DME rather than sugar will almost always give a lower ABV.

If you are looking for a great way to make a cheap, high ABV drink, then a wine made from supermarket fruit juices is an approach.

And here is the thread:

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=49462

The reason I currently do beers, mainly, is that I really enjoy the end product and find the brewing process fun - a bit like cooking. Also the end product is just so much better for a kit brewer now than it was 30 years ago.

no wine never interested me at all I like my Larger and some bitters but tbh larger is my thing would like it around 4-5 abv though my last brew I think was probably around 2-3abv I still enjoyed it though