Asian fermentables

I made my monthly stop at the Asian store to pick up a 25 pound sack of rice and the usual supplies for the missus and found a couple of items I thought I might find a use for. At $.99 each I figured, what the hell... The first item is called Gula Jawa and is made in Indonesia - raw palm sugar. The label says it's blended with cane sugar.

The second photo shows Chinese maltose. The pink cap is maltose and wheat starch and the yellow top shows rice and malt as ingredients.

Now I wonder how I can use them?

Awesome! Randy Mosher (in "Radical Brewing") spoke very highly of using unusual sugars in brewing, so I'd be intrigued to hear how you get on. I imagine using them as a way of augmenting your grain bill would work best - maybe having around 10% of your fermentables coming from the sugar would be my guess.

Do you think the palm/cane sugar would be suitable in a Belgian?

I think it'd be excellent in a strong Belgian brew... really any variety that usually wants to ferment out onto the dry side, and uses adjunct sugar could benefit uniquely from those.

I'm intrigued by the bottles of Maltose... Interesting.......

Gula Jawa is actually from the Coconut Palm (sugar derived from flowers of) and not the Date Palm. The other brand you show is, IIRC, actually Date Palm.

The other stuff is actually more rice solids than Maltose but, it does have it's own unique contribution.

My suggestion would be to do a small batch, if possible, and add the sugars in different stages of different tests. IMO, they do offer a unique character. One you would not expect and is quite different from the actual raw flavor. That is to say, it's different post fermentation than it is raw.

I have a giant jar of palm sugar I use in asian cooking and have been thinking about doing a beer featuring that with jasmine rice in the mash and sorichi ace hops. If I can find some of those hops for sale anywhere I will make that soon.

We have a new brewery here in Seattle, Laughing Buddha Brewing Co. that specializes in Asian style beers. They use a variety of Asian ingredients and their beers are outstanding. Especially the Pandan Brown which utilizes palm sugar and pandan leaves. It contributes some wonderful vanilla hazelnut notes to the beer.

Don't put it in a Hefe

Brewtopia said:

We have a new brewery here in Seattle, Laughing Buddha Brewing Co. that specializes in Asian style beers. They use a variety of Asian ingredients and their beers are outstanding. Especially the Pandan Brown which utilizes palm sugar and pandan leaves. It contributes some wonderful vanilla hazelnut notes to the beer.

Click to expand...

I want to drink beer there.

Randy Mosher, as mentioned above, really really loves exciting partially refined sugars. He puts 10-15% in just about any beer over say 10%, and almost all Belgians. He likes jaggery and piloncillo a lot. I'm skimming through Radical Brewing now to see if I can find a specific mention of any of the ones you picked up.

So how could you just add rice to the mash without using flaked rice? My understanding is that the rice would have to be precooked, correct? So if you just cook up a batch of rice and add it right to the mash, would you need to add rice hulls to get a good lauter?