So I havent brewed a whole lot of amber ales over the years but Costco started carrying 4lb bags of this Coconut Sugar recently and it is fairly cheap at $10-12 a bag. They call it “blonde” in color, but it is more like brown sugar in its appearance and I figured an American Amber Ale would be a good beer to experiment with it in. On the bag it states that you should use it 1:1 like you would use regular table sugar but I found from gravity readings after adding it that it does not add near the points that cane sugar does. From reading up on it, it seems that it is similar to table sugar in its molecular make up, lower glycemic index, blah, blah. It is not derived from the coconut meal or juice, so it does not have any coconut flavor like you would imagine, it comes from the flower of the coconut, wherever that is? Anyway, I am very pleased with the outcome of my recipe. It is pretty basic and straight forward, I added a little carapils to give some mouthfeel and mashed in the mid 150’s to combat the expected drop in gravity points from a adding what I thought would be a completely fermentable sugar. What I did not expect while using it was that I did not get anywhere near the 1:1 bump in gravity points that the bag stated. I use brewer’s friend’s software and since they don’t have a choice for coconut sugar I substituted brown sugar instead. It only bumped the points up the equivalent of 1.7lb’s of brown sugar (I used 4lbs of coconut sugar), so that’s what you will see in the recipe. It adds some very interesting toffee notes that come through in the finish. If anyone else has tried this let me know what you thought. I think I may try making a super simple Mexican Lager with only Pilsner malt and the coconut sugar to see what this stuff is really contributing taste wise to the final product. Here’s my recipe.
HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Coconut Sugar amber ale
Author: me
Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American Amber Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 16 gallons (fermenter volume)
Boil Size: 12.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.064
Efficiency: 67% (brew house)
STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.007
ABV (standard): 5.64%
IBU (tinseth): 26.72
SRM (morey): 11.5
FERMENTABLES:
24 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (75.7%)
3 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 80L (9.5%)
3 lb - American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt) (9.5%)
1.7 lb - Brown Sugar (5.4%)
HOPS:
2.7 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 8, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 22.56
2.5 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 8, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 4.16
2 oz - azacca, Type: Pellet, AA: 10.8, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days
1 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 8, Use: Dry Hop for 5 days
MASH GUIDELINES:
- Temp: 154 F, Time: 60 min
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.25 qt/lb
YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (custom): 86%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 54 - 77 F
