Rose petal spread?

[Arrheinous]

There's a local Indian grocer three minutes from work so I went to pick up a kilogram of jaggery today for a planned quad.

While I was waiting for check out I found this stuff:

It's 25% rose petal and 75% sugar from Pakistan. Upfront it tastes and looks a lot like smooshed up raisins but has a floral but pleasant aftertaste.

I'm thinking about doing jaggery, this petal sugar, and cardamom in a quad; maybe add some to the saffron tripel that's going into secondary soon? One pound of this would add ~4oz of rose petals.

 

[zmanzorro]

I've been trying to experiment with rose water but haven't put enough in yet to make a noticeable difference. The stuff by itself is pretty potent!

 

[Arrheinous]

I was surprised by this because I'd never had rose before. Seems like the sugar has actually been cooked with the rose in it rather than just mixing the two together raw.

There's a lot of dark fruit and spice to it. How does the rose water or hips compare?

 

[zmanzorro]

The rose water I used was completely floral. I probably could have condensed more by just boiling it down on the stove.

 

[unionrdr]

That's how we used to make rose water on the stove. Reduced it by about 40% or so. I was just wondering if it'd be any stronger if the rose water was used to make the priming solution?

 

[Arrheinous]

I'm brewing up a dubbel tonight using the whole can (2.2#). Might be able to call it a big dubbel or a small BDSA.


Rose Alley Dubbel
5# Munton Maris Otter (36.6%)
3.5# Dingeman Pils (25.6%)
2.5# Dingeman Munich (18.3%)
0.5# Munton Crystal 150# (3.7%)
0.5# Aromatic (3.7%)
2.2# Ahmed Rose Petal Spread (3/4 sugar, calculate as 1.65# table sugar = 12.1% of grist)

22 IBU with Pacific Jade or Styrian Aurora (30 min addition)
Mash 90 minutes at 152F
Wyeast 1214XL Abbey Ale; 65F --> 75F

OG (70% eff): 1.074
SRM: 16 - 24 depending on rose petal spread
Est. ABV: 8.3%


MO/Pils/Munich mix is mostly to use up the last of my pils malt and reduce the color a bit to get the 16 SRM on paper, shooting for a red color. MO has been my go-to base malt.

Really not sure about the color that the sugar will impart. It's definitely a cooked sugar with raisin and fig on top of the spicy rose flavor. My SRM for the item in Beersmith was set to 15, not sure why I chose that. If it's more like amber candi sugar (SRM 75) then it'll come out SRM 24.

Going with UK Crystal 150L for more toffee and dark fruit over the more standard Special B and/or Caramunich.

 

[Arrheinous]

Update: This Ahmed Rose Spread actually comes in 500g (1.1#) units instead of a full kilo. I used the 0.5kg of the rose spread and 0.8#of jaggery. 1 black cardamom pod in secondary and I let it sit for two months.

There's plenty of petals still in the sugar mixture and they carry through pretty easily to the keg of you don't strain. They didn't cause a clogging issue though.

This amount of rose petal was borderline too much for me but people who are into rose loved it. It provides a lot of spice flavor. On my next iteration I'd use 0.25 kg (1/4#) of the rose petal sugar and 0.8# of a dark brown sugar with 2 - 3 cardamom pods. And use Special B for the dark crystal.

I'd call it Bodice Ripper or something. And the OG puts it up more toward a BDSA than a dubbel.