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You are here: Home --> Forum Home --> Brewing Forum --> Recipe Discussion --> How much is too much for dry hopping?

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chino_brews
Charter Member
Eden Prairie, MN
301 Posts


Where to source jaggery: the Indian grocery store. It is made and used primarily in India, but is found in some parts of SE Asia. It may be labeled "jaggery", or "gur", "gor", "gol" or some variation (the r and l are used interchangeably when translating to English due to differences among the 32+ distinct languages in India).

If you can find it in a cone wrapped in paper or burlap and purple/hot pink string, that will have the best chance of being most authentic (made of palm sugar, not cane sugar). But generally it is packed as hard or semi-soft chunks in plastic bags, in which case you want to read the ingredients to make sure you are getting gur made from palm sugar and not cane sugar or molasses.

Jaggery will give you sweetness and some of the complexities of unrefined sugar (caramel notes), but you also get this creaminess and barely perceptible acidic bite you won't get from anything else. It is amazing in stouts.




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


I agree that the only way to get the palm sugar ones is from the Asian grocery section/store, but they have the Mexican jaggery ... whatever it's called.  It also has an interesting caramelly flavor, but not the cream you're talking about.



Posted 34 days ago.

testingapril
Charter Member
Atlanta, GA
595 Posts


The mexican stuff is called piloncillo and I wouldn't let it near my IPAs. That stuff has a VERY strong taste, and I can't see it going well with IPA.

It's caramelly and brown sugary with some hay and minerals. Hint of burntness and maybe even some umami.

I too have considered a dose of plain sugar when adding dry hops, but I usually just try to add them when fermentation is really close to done. Basically when I diacetyl rest. Let it go two more days, then crash. I try to swirl the carboy every 12 hours at a minimum during the dry hopping. Blows off co2 and agitates the wort ala the AMA A/B guy's experiment ans replies to my comments in his thread.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Swirl the carboy?  Interesting.




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


Piloncillo!  Thank you!  I kept thinking "picadillo" or something like that.  I must have search for half an hour to try and figure out what it's called.

I have to scratch my head at your description though.  Maybe you just got a bad piloncillo?  I agree that it has a rich caramel/toffee aspect and might even be a bit burnt (depending on the color), but I never got minerals,  hay, or umami.  I'd say it's more like the topping of flan.  My thought here was that if you're pulling pineapple-like tropical flavors, a piloncillo would push the final beer towards something like pineapple upsidedown cake.  Homebrewdad likes things a bit more on the sweet side, so that seemed like a good fit for him.

Interesting about the swirling hops thing.  I missed that in the A/B AMA.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Seriously, why must you torment me so?  I'm wishing I had a local source for this crap.

Hmm... whole foods?  Ethnic market?




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


My Whole Paycheck pretty much eliminated anything truly ethnic, but if you have an older store, they might stock it.  Any ethnic market that carries Latin foods should have it.  If you find yourself in an ethnic market that caters more to Asians, then I'd look for the palm sugar jaggery.

If I see any next time I'm at an ethnic market, I'll buy a variety and send you a couple.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


I think we have an Asian market not far from where I work.  I may need to check this out.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Okay, I couldn't stand it.  I Googled, and we have what is apparently a nice Asian market very close to my work.  "Super Oriental Market", here I come!

I have never stepped foot in an ethnic market before... I was tons of fun, like a whole other world.  All of the flyers in other languages, pretty cool. 

The girl at the register was very helpful.  She'd never heard of jaggery, but walked me directly to the *four* kinds of palm sugar they stocked.  I ended up buying a 17.6 ounce/500 g solid piece of palm sugar from Thailand.  Claims it's 100% palm sugar (O-Cha is the brand).  It may not be exactly the same, I suppose, but it looks very much like what I saw online when looking at jiggery, and it cost me all of $3.

Now, to figure out (a) how much to use and (b) how to even use it.  Do I add a little water and make a syrup like I would with table sugar?  Do I toss it in as is?




Posted 34 days ago.

rayfound
Charter Member
Riverside, CA
313 Posts


Let's not forget Olan, asking advice here is just asking for us to rectally source  answers, since this all started from my hypothetical musing. 



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


That's okay, Ray.  I'm actively researching elsewhere, too. 

For that matter, I'm quite liable to just make something up.  You know, rectally source my own answer.  I'm the one that has to deal with it, after all. 




Posted 34 days ago.

uberg33k
Charter Member
The Internet
314 Posts


First thing is I would break off a tiny piece and taste it.

I think you'd only need 2-3oz per dry hop addition to get the effect you want.  You may want to add more depending on how you like the flavor of the palm sugar and if you want to dry out the beer more.

I would definitely boil a tiny bit of water and melt your sugar additions into it, then dump that in the fermenter.  I know plenty of people dump straight sucrose into the fermenter for tripels and whatnot, but this stuff is from Thailand.  Any place where it isn't safe to drink the water should probably be assumed that all adjuncts are unsanitary for beer.




Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


We're definitely on the same line of thought, uberg.  I'm looking now to see if I can figure out that gravity contributions of the sugar.




Posted 34 days ago.

rayfound
Charter Member
Riverside, CA
313 Posts


Dry hops are the only thing I add to a fermenter without boiling/sanitizing. 



Posted 34 days ago.

homebrewdad
Charter Member
Birmingham, AL
2480 Posts


Considering this stuff has the consistency of limestone right now, I expect to need to melt it on the stove.




Posted 34 days ago.

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