Sweet Potato beer!

I made some sweet potato beer!
why? you know why.....

Its bottling day tomorrow, and I'll get some first impression.
When you sniff it, it smells like.... sweet potato pie!

1 kg. German Dark Munich
0.3 kg. Weyermann CaraMunich III®
4 kg. English 2-row Pale
22 g. Sterling (Pellets, 7.50 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
8 g. Sterling (Pellets, 7.50 %AA) boiled 10 minutes.
2 kilograms Mashed baked sweet potato
1 tablespoons spice mix(cinamon,pepper,allspice,clove)
Yeast: White Labs WLP051 California Ale V

Notes
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The sweet potatoes were baked, mashed and put into the mash.
spices @ 3 mins.

Vital Statistics
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Original Gravity: 1.050
Terminal Gravity: 1.010
Color: 12.03 SRM
Bitterness: 24.6 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.2 %

Sounds Deliciouso... A vegetable starch adjunct beer is on my to-do list.

I was thinking of something a little strange, maybe yucca, rutabaga... parsnip, see this is why I haven't sat down and put one together yet. Maybe I might just stick to sweet taters and punk-ins.

So you add the sweet potatos to your mash at 3 mins left of mash? Tell me what you think, this sounds great, I just hope there is no stuck sprage from sweet potato gunk.

I think ohad meant that the taters go into the mash for the entire mash time, and the spices go into the boil at the last 3 min.

SnickASaurusRex said:

I think ohad meant that the taters go into the mash for the entire mash time, and the spices go into the boil at the last 3 min.

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yes.
sweet potatoes were in the mash. I mashed for 90 mins.
The sparge was OK.

that sounds very tasty. I will have to try something like this.

Ok got it, this sounds like a great fall beer but im not picky about seasons. I think I will do this after I brew up my chimay clone and my Bitburgale is done.

I was talking to a guy the other day about his pumpkin beer and tasting it (really good), turns out that he ages it for a year before it gets to be good, has a lot of vegetable characteristics before that, you may need to do the same with yours, at least save a six pack for that long to try it out.

Rock on! Why the spices? Do they bring out the the sweet potato flavor?

Sounds like an interesting alternative to a pumpkin beer. I may have to try this in a small batch...

Also, is this the same ohad from athleticsnation.com?

chri5 said:

Sounds like an interesting alternative to a pumpkin beer. I may have to try this in a small batch...

Also, is this the same ohad from athleticsnation.com?

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Unless I have a split personality, and my alter-ego is an athlete, then no.

The local brewery-to-be here does a great sweet potato beer, without all of the spices. The SP adds a really nice backbone to the beer, without being sweet, which is my problem with most pumpkin beers.

so... I opened the first bottle today.
it spent a month in primary, then 3 weeks in the bottle.

first impression: wow its hazy.even hazier then a wheat. I don't think its yeast, probably protein or starch from the sweet potatoes.

the flavor is too green and a bit too spicy (from spices not yeast).
I believe all three flaws will diminish with time.

no sweet potato flavor. at all.

well...

I opened another bottle.

less hazy.
less tasty.
its so funky and yeasty and it has a terrible after taste.

I think it got infected.

down the drain!

ohad said:

well...

I opened another bottle.

less hazy.
less tasty.
its so funky and yeasty and it has a terrible after taste.

I think it got infected.

down the drain!

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well that sucks... i was interested in this one

I'm thinking about brewing with beets. Think the recipe would work with beets, minus the spice, and a lighter srm to let the red color come through?

Also, did you use any gelten to help with cloudiness?

the beer was quite bad and went down the drain...

again, I think it was either infected or had a very bad aftertaste from pitching a too small amount of too old yeast.

since I haven't had a good experience with this , I can't really advise you on the subject

I actually did a sweet potatoe lager two years ago.

Added a 10oz cooked potatoe to the mash. Never added any spices or finishing hops, wanted the potatoe to stand alone. You could easily pick up on it's character.

FWIW, the OCT issue of Brew your own has a whole section devoted to partial mash recipes with Sweet Potatoes, etc. . .

Might want to check it out.

It is a shame your beer went south on ya. I had a sweet potato beer from The Bruery on tap this year. It was very nice! I have been thinking of making one similar this year, but never got around to it. Here is the description of Autumn Maple from http://www.thebruery.com/beers/index.html

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Brewed with 17 lbs. of yams per barrel (in other words, a lot of yams!), this autumn seasonal is a different take on the “pumpkin” beer style. Brewed with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, molasses, and maple syrup, and fermented with our traditional Belgian yeast strain, this bold and spicy beer is perfect on a cold autumn evening.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]ABV: 10%, IBU: 25, SRM: 15, Release: Fall[/FONT]​

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I found this in a science journal from 1920. It tells you how to prepare a "sweet potato syrup" by just covering the potatos with water, boiling, mashing them with the water, continue boiling, and skim the pulp from the top, leaving the sugary syrup behind. Has anyone tried this method? I would love to give it a try, adding the syrup to the wort during the boil.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0p...EwBA#v=onepage&q="sweet potato syrup"&f=false

Libertexian said:

I found this in a science journal from 1920. It tells you how to prepare a "sweet potato syrup" by just covering the potatos with water, boiling, mashing them with the water, continue boiling, and skim the pulp from the top, leaving the sugary syrup behind. Has anyone tried this method? I would love to give it a try, adding the syrup to the wort during the boil.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0p...EwBA#v=onepage&q="sweet potato syrup"&f=false

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This is very cool. Did anyone try this to get a "sweet potato extract"?

How did the beer turn out?

Poprocksincola said:

How did the beer turn out?

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ohad said it got dumped. No good batch.

brewed one of these about a month ago. It is now sitting in the secondary ferment er. It is really hazy and large amount of sediment at the bottom of the carboy. would it be good to transfer this to a third fer mentor to clear up some of the haziness?

Alright, did a but more research on it and I will move it to a third tonight to gather some clarity.