looking at how to make beers, lagers and red wine stronger

[BigLee]

Hi guys I'm new to this only been brewing 4 weeks and done a John bull ipa at 4.7%. A apple cider at 4.5% and in the 2nd week process of a sweet newkie brown which I'm hoping will turn out 3.8% alcohol.
My question is does it work like this-. If I add an extra 250 grammes of priming sugar to the 1kg standard amount on the first fermentation process will this make the alcohol level 1/4 stronger on its own or do I have to add an extra 1/4 sachet of yeast to make it work??

As I don't fancy wasting a 5 gallon bucket on trial and error, any advice is appreciated.
Thank you

 

[simon12]

There is already sugar in the kits so 1/4 extra will add closer to 1/8-1/10th or roughly 17-19g of sugar per litre makes 1% more ABV. The yeast should eat all the fermentable sugar regardless so more will not adjust the alcohol level.

 

[Fil]

basically yes more sugar = higher abv, upto a point. yeast have a limit to the level of alcohol they can survive in circa 7%-9% with beer yeasts

abv calculator http://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator

 

[Covrich]

To be honest I would look for in beer to add malt extract more than sugar.. IMO a one can beer kit plus 1KG of sugar doesn't make the greatest product adding 1.25KG to a beer kit I think will diminish it even more.. depending on how strong you wanted to make it.. if you wanted to go for something like 5%+ I would add a whole KG of Dry malt extract and then possibly you could add 500 grams of sugar to help boost the abv.

As I say I would where possible use the highest ratio of malt extract to sugar as you are willing to afford, your end results will be much better for it.

 

[BigLee]

Thanks for all your advice guys.

 

[alarmsparks]

Have you looked at the higher alcohol kits, I brew the Woodfords Headcracker and find it is a tasty pint.

Might be worth looking at the kit reviews on this site to find something to your taste.

 

[ManseMasher]

If it were me, for the first couple of brews I would just concentrate on nailing the basics, in terms of getting used to the equipment, process, cleaning , sterilising, doing the brew, fermenting, conditioning etc. Once comfortable with that lot, then start tinkering. Otherwise if something goes wrong with the brew, it could be either the process or the tinkering that has caused the problem, and it would be difficult to get to the bottom of it.

Just my thoughts....

As for adding sugar, it could dry out and thin your beer....