Does jaggery spoil?

Gardener972

Should jaggery be kept in the refrigerator? I have some jaggery that has a bit of mold on it (white) and it smells like cheese. Odd... I didn't know this would happen! Can the mold be cut off and the jaggery still be used?

Digital Drifter

technically, it should not. Unless water went in.

Now, jaggery blocks themselves are brown with whitish coating. So if it looks like the pic here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaggery

you're sort of safe.

Otherwise, run, it's aliens!

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skk

You mean, Guḷ (गुळ) in Marathi, I'm pretty sure. As the earlier poster says, the whitish coating is normal. Buttt, it definitely goes rock hard in both CO and CA, USA; I got some to make really authentic Pune chaat ( Bhel ), but only got 1 use out of it - it was too hard to use when I went to use it again a few months later( adding hot water doesn't duplicate things for me ). I just gave it away to a amateur brewing neighbor of mine - saying, here, they say you can make alcoholic beverages out it - so far, I'm still sober as a judge .

I wonder if the one we get in the US are out of palm sap and not out of sugar-cane as I've known it to be ? I'll look at the label next time I got to a sub-continent shop and report back - unless you still have the label for your cone shaped block of jaggery and can tell us ?

-skk

Nick-H

Mrs N threw ours away, saying it had gone off.

My protestations of, "How can it go off: it's almost pure sugar!" elicited one of those looks that said, "When you have been Indian as long as I have..."

I didn't see it. I'll never know if she was right!

Sama

I'd say if something smells like cheese and it's not cheese, get rid of it!

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suricate

The hard cane jaggery (shown in Wikipedia) does still have some
amount of residual moisture in it. In addition, it may have some
salt content (you can taste it), -- whether this is added
intentionally or not, I don't know. In favourable conditions it can
gather more moisture, and ferment (you can smell it). The
white, softish parts are already spoilt.

Nick-H

Yes. I think that is what happened to ours. I'm afraid though, there are times when I forget that my wife has spent a whole lifetime here .

However, on general matters, we score about 50/50, so, "You should learn to trust your [husband/wife]", has had, "...at least when they are right!" tagged on the end.

Love it

skk

To answer the base question, I did both - in CA I used it straight after I bought it and it was just fine - softish, no white bits - and then kept the rest in the fridge - a few months I went to use it again - it was a little whitish, didn't smell of cheese though, though I can't recall really sniffing it. I just scraped, well tried to at least, the whitish bits off and that's when I noticed how rock hard it had become - so then I took first the back of the cleaver to it and after that a hammer.. I thought of using a chisel + hammer next but c'mon.. its only for use in Bhel after all.

In CO, I left it outside in the larder cupboard - same result.

-skk

RPG

The best stuff is from the date palm (see the Wikipedia link in post #2). The sugar does not go bad, but the subtleties of flavor are lost with time. So it should not be saved for more than a couple of months. Sugar cane jaggery is less complex and so lasts longer, which is why it is available everywhere and all year while date palm jaggery is a seasonal specialty.

suricate

The date palm jaggery is prized for its delicate aroma, and is
a winter specialty in Bengal, being used in all sorts of sweets
preparations. It is available in various distinct forms, liquid,
semi-liquid, and solid (the cane jaggery is also available
in the semi-liquid form).

abracax

Mold can grow on or in anything, including 2N sodium hydroxide. I keep mine wrapped up in the fridge.

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jituyadav

Jaggery does not spoil, the white stuff is normal. In fact, its health benefits increase as it gets older. Pure jaggery will be crystalline, the jaggery sold in markets usually has its pure sugar crystals removed. To test the purity of jaggery, break it and you should be able to see clear crystallised shine. The crystals make aging of jaggery better but in absence of that, the rest of the part is prone to such effects as getting whitish stuff more prominently and absorbing more moisture.

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aruna64

if it smells best to throw it away..........if it has moisture it definately is in for some amount of putrification.best to buy in small quantities and use in case thats not posibble i have once bought broken it with a hammer , stored it in zip pouches and refrigerated them though i did not freeze it. i wonder if iit could start fermenting..any inputs on fermentation of jaggery would be useful for me

skk

I know a _lot_ about Sangli/Miraj,Islampur, Kirloskarwadi - heartland of the Maharashtra sugar-cane industry. I've been on visits in the factories. Its all air what you are saying.

I have family that works their butt off to do all this scientifically - a quick freakin' google produces papers such as:

Freeze concentration of sugarcane juice in a jaggery making process
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...4af2e090dd40c5

or

Performance Evaluation of Two Pan Furnace for Jaggery Making
http://www.ieindia.org/pdf/90/90AG107.pdf

Jeez... On a more relaxed level, anyway, to the subject at heart which is the use of gur(gul)/jaggery is cooking, I come across this that is a second source for my experience with it:

Jaggery stores well. Once in 3 or 4 months, I buy a big block of jaggery from Indian stores. I break it using a knife and hammer. Place the knife in the middle of the block and lightly hit it with hammer. Jaggery breaks into pieces. Further gentle tapping with hammer results in small pieces and powdered jaggery. I

http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/ar...cane-and-palm/

But she(since its Indira its a SHE) says gently - and she is in India, where humidity and temperature ( and bacterial?) conditions are diffrent; well, us guys in CA and CO had to whack it( no double entendre intended) .. hang on - could be because we are guys.

EDIT: She's NOT in India - She's somewhere in the USA.. so - this could just be a US thang.. I _know_ from my recollection as a kid that gul stayed soft for ages and ages in Pune India, close to the river ( which is a temperature and humidity indicator) - I used to sneak gul+peanuts as a combo from the "kitchen area" - read "corner" when my mom wasn't watching.. probably her whole weeks planned ration at that. Sorry mom.

-skk