Has anyone ever used Thai Palm Sugar?

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brewdjoffe

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I'm planning on brewing a recipe that an American friend gave me (XPA). This is only my fourth extract brew so its a bit more technical than I'm used to and wanted to ask the esteemed brewers' advice (i.e. you).

The recipe calls for Thai Palm Sugar. Has anyone ever used this in a brew before? The recipe is set out below:

2.5kg Pale DME
900g Wheat DME
450g Honey Malt
230g 40L Caramel Malt
450g Thai Palm Sugar

25g Chinook (First wort)
25g Chinook - 60
38g Palisade - 30
60g Mt Hood - 10
110g Simcoe - 0

Dry hop with 25g of each of Mt Hood and Simcoe

I'm not sure what to do with the Thai Palm sugar. I assume I would add it in with the DME after steeping the grains, bringing the wort to the boil and then turning the heat off to add the DME (and palm sugar?). Any suggestions would be welcome. I also assume that I would be using this stuff - http://shop.coles.com.au/online/national/jeenys-sugar-palm - which looks solid, but presumably would break down pretty quickly in the hot liquid.

4 other questions (sorry, I'm new to this):

1. Is Pale DME the same as Light DME?
2. I can't seem to find any honey malt - is there an appropriate substitute (Weyermann Carared someone suggested)?
2. Is a "first wort" hop addition applicable to an extract brew? I think this recipe was converted from all grain
3. I don't think I can source any palisade hops - does anyone have any suggested substitutes? From a quick google search it looks like Willamette might be best.
 
I have made a Pale Ale with palm sugar (jaggery), based on an idea from one of Randy Mosher's books. Lovely beer, and very good with chilli, fish sauce and similar Vietnamese/Thai ingredients. Likes turmeric too. It took quite a while of bottle-conditioning for some of the stranger palm sugar aromatics and flavours to integrate, but has turned out well. I fine grating it coarsely makes it easy to handle and weigh. I added it right at the end of the boil, as I didn't want to lose any of the particular flavours and smells from the palm sugar.
 
pajs said:
I have made a Pale Ale with palm sugar (jaggery), based on an idea from one of Randy Mosher's books. Lovely beer, and very good with chilli, fish sauce and similar Vietnamese/Thai ingredients. Likes turmeric too. It took quite a while of bottle-conditioning for some of the stranger palm sugar aromatics and flavours to integrate, but has turned out well. I fine grating it coarsely makes it easy to handle and weigh. I added it right at the end of the boil, as I didn't want to lose any of the particular flavours and smells from the palm sugar.
Thanks for the advice pajs
 
If you're to use Thai palm sugar, make sure it has some certification, it's big business over there and a lot of rainforest is disappearing to palm farms
 
pajs said:
I have made a Pale Ale with palm sugar (jaggery), based on an idea from one of Randy Mosher's books. Lovely beer, and very good with chilli, fish sauce and similar Vietnamese/Thai ingredients. Likes turmeric too. It took quite a while of bottle-conditioning for some of the stranger palm sugar aromatics and flavours to integrate, but has turned out well. I fine grating it coarsely makes it easy to handle and weigh. I added it right at the end of the boil, as I didn't want to lose any of the particular flavours and smells from the palm sugar.
jaggery do not think thats palm sugar but sugar cane juice boiled .
 
I used palm sugar in my beer once. Didn't like the Orangutan fur that kept clogging up my beer tap.........
 
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