Increasing alcohol in brew

rocker69

Hi
Just brewed a on the rocks mixed berry cider and going off my hydrometer readings it came out at 5.4% not the 5.9% that was stated on the tin. I did use the right amount of water and the 1.3 kilos of brewing sugar and left it to ferment for a good 10 days, So I'm a bit disappointed as I like my cider around the 6% mark.
I'm now about to start a on the rocks raspberry and lime brew and would like it to be a bit more stronger probably 6.5% - 7%, would I be able just to add more sugar then 1.3 kilos and if I can then how much or will the yeast that comes with the pack not be able to handle the extra sugar.

Cheers

HBO_Staff

Just bear in mind that when you prime the bottles or barrel with sugar, the secondary fermentation will increase the alcohol strength a bit more too as it ferments into alcohol. You can do one of 2 things to increase the strength, or a combination, either add some more sugar (too much and it will become sweet), or reduce the volume of liquid from 40 pints to say 36 pints. Sometimes people do a bit of both, reduce the volume of pints a little and add a bit more sugar. It's trial and error on how much, but if you say made it to 36 pints and added an extra 300g of sugar it would increase the alcohol stength

rocker69

How much alcohol is produced during second fermentation, as I always thought it was none.

HBO_Staff

We can't say for certain, but as any sugar ferments it produces some alcohol, we think it is the Coopers kits which say it can be up to 0.5% but it will depend on the volume of sugar, etc.