Jaggery Dubbel

I decided to re-brew one of the beers that got the best reviews amongst my friends and family.  The first dubbel I brewed, I used the Belgian Candi Rocks.  Which was basically white table sugar shaped like brown rocks. The most telling review of it I had was "airy".  Buried under the light flavor was a nice dubbel - figs and other dark fruit flavors - but the mash was too low to support the lack of body in the sugar.

This time, I used a sugar called 'palm sugar' at the local Asian supermarket.  I think it's also called Jaggery or Gur some places.  I didn't really intend to use this for a dubbel, but since I finally had milled grain and the Belgian yeast can benefit from the Texas heat (my house is between 78-80 during the day) I decided to go for it.  I'm hoping the palm sugar has some characteristics that add body to the beer, since I didn't chance the mash schedule at all. One note: I've seen palm sugar sold in pancake batter colored discs about the size of a hard pancake. The sugar I bought (right) is much darker. I'm not sure what the difference is (I know some are made from cane sugar), but I decided on the darker version would be more fitting for this style.

Dubbel with Palm Sugar: 14-bis 

//14-bis was the first plane to fly under it's own power. Many think it should be the 'first' airplane since the Wright Brothers used a rail and later a catapult. Anyways, it had two wings (biplane-double-dubbel)  and was from Brasil, which has palm trees. It's also the 'first' beer posted on my blog. 

// 1 gallon batch

Grain Bill

2.5 lb 2 Row Malt
.325 lb Munich Malt
.30 lb Aromatic Malt
.25lb Special B Malt

Mash/Sparge

60 minute mash
Target temp 148*F
Starting temp 153*F
Final temp 146*F
Lazy Fly Sparge @ 170*F 

Boil

15g Saaz (2.5%AA) @ 60 minutes
8.6 oz Palm Sugar @15 minutes

Ferment

2/3 tube WLP530 Abby Ale Yeast
OG 1.080
FG 1.005
ABV 10.0%

//Notes

Brewed 8/21/2012 with Katie

Overpitched (hard to be accurate using less than the full tube of yeast)

OG much less than anticipated

Fermented in my dad's closet, thermostat set to 78*F

Tasting Post