MariposaSouth
Active Member
...actually in un-racked secondary. A couple of weeks ago I did a brew with some home malted/toasted/roasted grains and got very poor conversion. I also added "Amylase Formula" to the mash. The boil included sorghum extract and a little molasses, so there were still plenty of fermentables in the wort.
I was still annoyed at the starches that made it into the fermenter, so after the brew I came to this forum in search of enzyme wisdom and read alot about sweet potatoes.
So my next brew will definitely have sweet potatoes in the mash... but I wanted to help my current brew too.
I peeled and cut up 1/2 of a large sweet potato, and cooked it in water from 90F to 125F, to denature the enzyme inhibitor found in sweet potatoes (that happens @ 90F), and hopefully "excite" the b-amylase enzymes. Then I put my cuttings (the size of steak fries) into star-san (just in case) for about five minutes. After that I added them to the fermenter.
Anyone done that before? One of these days I'm going to read every thread here....
I plan to rack in 3 - 5 days, leaving the sweet potatoes behind. Hopefully by then some of those helpful little enzymes will have ventured throughout my beer, terrorizing any starch molecules they find.
When fermentation is complete, I'll do another starch test and post the results here.
I was still annoyed at the starches that made it into the fermenter, so after the brew I came to this forum in search of enzyme wisdom and read alot about sweet potatoes.
So my next brew will definitely have sweet potatoes in the mash... but I wanted to help my current brew too.
I peeled and cut up 1/2 of a large sweet potato, and cooked it in water from 90F to 125F, to denature the enzyme inhibitor found in sweet potatoes (that happens @ 90F), and hopefully "excite" the b-amylase enzymes. Then I put my cuttings (the size of steak fries) into star-san (just in case) for about five minutes. After that I added them to the fermenter.
Anyone done that before? One of these days I'm going to read every thread here....
I plan to rack in 3 - 5 days, leaving the sweet potatoes behind. Hopefully by then some of those helpful little enzymes will have ventured throughout my beer, terrorizing any starch molecules they find.
When fermentation is complete, I'll do another starch test and post the results here.