Does the Priming sugar augment the ABV?

Yes, it will increase the ABV by ~0.3 percentage points

 

Funny..... you're exactly right, and for some reason I'd never even really thought about this at all. I've been bottle conditioning for 16 years and never thought about this for some reason. But did the math, and, you're right. Interesting. Guess I might want to take this into account from here on out! Save a few calories, and slow down the buzz a touch.

 

Whether it's 0.3 or 0.5 depends whether you divide by 135 or 131.

In any event ... the ABV boost t'ain't much.

 

Yes, but not as much as adding a pint of bourbon

 

Technically, it depends on the pre-existing alcohol content and how you add it. If you dissolve it in enough water, it could dilute the alcohol content, not enhance it. For example, if you have a 5.25 gallons of 1.051 wort and add 2 oz of priming sugar, you would raise the wort to 1.052. However, if you first dissolved that sugar in 1c boiling water, a practice I follow to facilitate dissolution and mixture into the beer, you have 5.32 gallons of 1.051 wort. In this example, I am using gravity as a surrogate for alcohol and have allowed beersmith to do a little rounding of decimals, but you get the point. Now, if you dissolve that sugar in a pint of bourbon... different story

 

To put the extra alcohol in perspective, commercial brewers are allowed a margin of+/-0.3% when declaring ABV.

 

But once you do that, the glass is full and there is no room for beer!

 

No worries, I've got a technique to solve that issue easily!