Sweet Potato Ale for Turkey Day

I'm going to start getting this one ready for Thanksgiving. Our college friends get together around Thanksgiving and we do up a meal and ridiculous shindig that we couldn't get away with at our family gatherings. We usually get trashed and rowdy is what I'm trying to say.

I want to get be able to perfect this thing before I make a big batch and keg it up, but here is my initial recipe and ideas. I want the taste of the sweet potatoes to come through, complimented by the spices. Essentially sweet potato casserole in a bottle.

All Grain
Batch Size: 2.5g
Brauhaus Efficiency: 75%
OG: 1.079
FG: 1.020
IBU: 37.2
SRM: 13.7 (a nice sweet potato color)
ABV: 7.75%

5# 2 Row Pale Malt
3# Sweet Potatoes (Mashed)
.5# Caramel/Crystal Malt 10L
.25# Biscuit Malt
.25# Flaked Wheat

1oz. Cascade @60m
.75oz. Goldings @10m

Wyeast Ale Blend #1087

Spice Blend Before Secondary (Cinnamon, Light ginger, Vanilla) to taste
4oz. Brown Sugar (Bottling)
.25tsp Irish Moss
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Bake the Sweet Potatoes @375 until they're ready to blow. Remove skin and mash those suckers. Add the mashed sweet potatoes to a grain bag and add at the beginning of the mash.

Mash in grains and taters at 140. Add Alpha and Beta Amylase. Gradually raise temperature to 149. These enzymes work hand in hand, alpha to break down the starches and beta to make it somewhat fermentable. The problem is, beta works best at a lower temp than alpha, but alpha has to do its thing before beta can. With a higher gravity, beta has more sugars to cling on to and can work at a higher temp. I'm hoping that at 149 (a nice median temp) both enzymes will be able to function. Makes more out of the sweet potatoes, increases efficiency of the whole batch, and most of all leaves behind less starch. After ~45 minutes, continue to raise temperature and mash out at 170. Rest 15 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes. This will also kill off the enzymes and keep the final product from being too dry.

I'm still debating on adding the spice tea at the end of the boil or before the secondary. We shall see.

Primary for 7-10 days. Secondary 14 days. Prime with brown sugar.

Any thoughts? Crazy?

I don't think you need to do such a specialty mash. Just single infuse it and maybe rest for 90min instead of 60. I don't even think you need to add the enzymes.

Do a search on here for sweet potato stout - a guy made one using 8# of taters. It sounded awesome.

I seeeee. May have to up the potatoes

One thing about these sweet potato recipes... noone seems to do the same thing with the main ingredient. I definitely want to utilize the potatoes as much as possible, both in taste and fermentables. I really want some taste to come through. May have to mash some in and also put some in late in the boil. we'll see how I feel on brewday

Might i also suggest swapping out some of that 2-row for some 6 row and maybe half pound of rice hulls and ditching the grain bag for the taters and perhaps leave them kind of chunky a bit.

This is how i'd do it at least. Your recipe looks pretty good.

fineexampl said:

Might i also suggest swapping out some of that 2-row for some 6 row and maybe half pound of rice hulls and ditching the grain bag for the taters and perhaps leave them kind of chunky a bit.

This is how i'd do it at least. Your recipe looks pretty good.

Click to expand...

The 6-row is a good idea and I debated about that for a while, but decided I wanted to keep the base malt flavor down. Hopefully give my SP a fighting chance for flavor and just add the extra enzymes. I'm already worried about the clarity from the starch, so if I can keep all of that to a minimum then I've won a small battle.

As far as the bag... I do BIAB, so no matter what it's going in a grain bag . Hasn't failed me and has saved quite a bit of work/money. Thanks for the input though!

Just like a pumpkin ale, don't expect any fermentables from the sweet potatoes, but you should have a very nice flavor and aroma from the sweet potatoes, sounds great.

I actually feel retarded for not realizing this. Instead of worrying about the mash and letting the sweet potatoes dictate my temperatures, I can just take care of the starch issue before I start brewing.

From a Cooking website:

If you like your sweet potato casserole extra sweet, all you have to do is bake the sweet potatoes low and slow!
Raw sweet potatoes are mostly starchy fibers, but they also contain an enzyme that will break down the starch into sugar at certain temperatures. According to food scientist Harold McGee, this enzyme happens to work best when the sweet potato is between 135°F and 170°F.
Logically, the longer you can keep the sweet potato within this temperature range, the more starch will get converted to sugar. Steaming and boiling cook the sweet potato too quickly. Sweet potatoes are done when they're soft all the way through.

Click to expand...

smchasta said:

I actually feel retarded for not realizing this. Instead of worrying about the mash and letting the sweet potatoes dictate my temperatures, I can just take care of the starch issue before I start brewing.

From a Cooking website:

Click to expand...

That would also imply to use raw sweet potatoes, no? They're very starchy (i just peeled and cut up some myself just not matter of fact) so what would happen if you used a cheese grater to shred them and add them raw to the mash??

fineexampl said:

That would also imply to use raw sweet potatoes, no? They're very starchy (i just peeled and cut up some myself just not matter of fact) so what would happen if you used a cheese grater to shred them and add them raw to the mash??

Click to expand...

You would actually put them in the oven for several hours around 145. The natural amylase enzymes start to break down the starches on its own. After a few hours, then you pop them out of the skin, mash, and then put in the... mash. If you added the SP raw, you'd have the starch issue all over again. I've been going over this a thousand times in my head; how to get maximum sugar, little starch, and maximum flavor. hmmmm