Why don't you actually make a couple recipes AS IS first, and learn a little about the basic process of brewing BEFORE you start "experimenting" or doctoring a kit. That way if the batch for some reason doesn't turn out, you can problem solve, and actually learn from the mistake instead of having too many variables to have to sort through because you tossed a bunch of stuff in?
Why don't you brew the first few kits "as is" and concentrate on nailing the basics first?
Kits are great for someone just starting out, because, if you don't think you know more than the creator of the recipe and try to mess with it like jacking it up to make it have more alcohol, or adding fruit where fruit isn't necessary, then they are FOOLPROOF. You don't need to worry about the ingredients or the recipe, and can concentrate on the process of brewing. You can get a feel for how to sanitize, how to follow the hop additions, how to transfer your beer, how to take gravity readings, knowing that everything else will fall into place. That at the minimum you'll still have good beer.
Also it will allow you to troubleshoot anything wrong easier, than if you chose an unproven recipe, or tried to wing it, or dumped a bunch of crap into it. Because you know the recipe is foolproof. If it tastes funny, you know it's NOT because of the recipe...it's because of some flaw in your process.
It's one variable less to worry about, until you get the basics down, get your process nailed, and a little more about recipe creation and the fundamentals before you start experimenting.
You'll get there....a LOT sooner, if you focus on the fundamentals, and get your processes in order...rather than just playing around.
If you're brewing with kits, and want a stronger beer, then brew higher gravity kits.
If you want a strong beer, don't choose a normal gravity beer and decide that since you read about boosting gravity by adding more sugars to just add more sugar, choose a beet of the grav you want, just like if you wand a peach beer, don't choose a non fruit beer recipe and try to "figure out" how to add the fruit...get a kit or recipe that has everything you need in the right quantities you need. Recipes are about a BALANCE between flavors, bitterness, aromas, what have you, and until you get a few batches under your belt, and learn the fundamentals, stick with the already proven and balanced recipes. That way you don't have the extra step of trying to figure out what went wrong if the beer doesn't taste good.....if the recipe or kit already tastes good (and they would have gone through tastes tests and ALREADY before you got to them- you know they are already good, if not award winning beers, if you went with a kit or book recipe, they have been vetted) if there is something not right, you will have an easier time trying to figure out what went wrong in terms of your brewing PROCESS, not because you went off the ranch and on top of trying to actually learn to brew, you also through a bunch of crap into the equation.
If you want a fruit beer, buy a fruit beer kit....
Beer recipes are a balance...and if you add to one variable, that will affect other parts of it...For example if you decide to raise the gravity of a balanced beer...a beer where the hops balance out the sweetness...and you raise the maltniness of it without also balancing the hops, then your beer may end up being way too cloyingly sweet. Or if you just add sugar willy nilly it could become overly dry, or cidery.
At this stage most folks trying to do it don't know enough yet, and they won't learn just by jacking a recipe o your first time out of the box. Don't start altering recipes on your first batch, or else you're gonna be posting a thread titled, "Why does my beer taste like I licked Satan's Anus after he ate a dozen coneys?" And we're not going to be able to answer you, because you've screwed with the recipe as well as maybe made a few noob brewer mistakes that typically get made, and neither you, nor us, are going to be able to figure out what went wrong. Because there's too many variables.
Just brew a couple batches and learn from them, and read about recipe creation before you start messing around. It's not about tossing stuff into a fermenter and seeing how it turns out.
The recipes don't need to be "enhanced." they were created by people who know more than someone who is just brewing their first batch. So why do you think you know more than them? If you want a spiced beer. Order a kit or brew a recipe using it from someone who actually knows what they're doing.
New brewers always seem to think what they've chosen is suddenly not good enough, and they feel they need to throw in the kitchen sink, like it's going to be the last batch of beer they're ever making (which in some cases after they junk it up, it ends up being, because they blame the beer, instead of themselves for monkeying with it) then they come back here complaining that their beer tastes like a$$.
