Potato Wine Problems

[Yetimann]

Hello all! So here's the deal, I wanted to try something interesting in a small batch and settled on this recipe from a book.

4lbs potatoes
17 cups water
2.5lb honey
1tsp nutrient
1 lb raisins

I sliced the potatoes and put them in a straining bag. Boiled until tender. Pour potato water overall ingredients except yeast. Once it was in the bucket and mixed I pitched red star yeast at 80 degrees.

After a few days of smelling like great beer or honey notes, the wine now (day 5) smells awful to me but is hard to describe...bad soap? Not appetizing. This ~ my 5th batch and have not encountered something like this. Not a sulfur smell.Any ideas? Mildly concerning as well is that after racking today there is no activity in the carboy. Pics here.
https://imgur.com/gallery/0mtPvil

 

[Blacksmith1]

Your recipe looks like a potato mead... Do they have some oddball name for that? Since it is an experiment I would let it age and see what it becomes. or feed it to your best friend because anyone else is going to abandon you if it's horrible.

 

[Yetimann]

edit: Ihaven't made this before this is my first run. Pineapple wine also pictured

 

[jgmillr1]

Does the recipe want you to convert the starches in the potatoes to sugar (aka. the mash process as in making beer)? I'm not sure you would want all that starch in your wine otherwise.

If the mash was expected, then you would have needed to heat them to 150-168 'F for upwards of a half hour. You can test if the conversion is completed with a drop of iodine in a sample of the liquid. If it turns purple, it means it isn't done yet.

 

[Yetimann]

Does the recipe want you to convert the starches in the potatoes to sugar (aka. the mash process as in making beer)? I'm not sure you would want all that starch in your wine otherwise.

If the mash was expected, then you would have needed to heat them to 150-168 'F for upwards of a half hour. You can test if the conversion is completed with a drop of iodine in a sample of the liquid. If it turns purple, it means it isn't done yet.

Recipe calls for just the water from the boiling of the potatoes not the actual potatoes

 

[ong]

Recipe calls for just the water from the boiling of the potatoes not the actual potatoes

I think the problem here is that the potato water is a starch and water solution. Yeast can’t directly ferment starch, so normally there is a step where enzymes (either in the fermentables, or added separately, or even produced by an introduced mold culture) turn that starch into sugar. I don’t see such a step in that recipe. My suspicion is that your must was colonized by microbes (probably bacteria) that can eat starch.

 

[bernardsmith]

Does the recipe want you to convert the starches in the potatoes to sugar (aka. the mash process as in making beer)? I'm not sure you would want all that starch in your wine otherwise.

If the mash was expected, then you would have needed to heat them to 150-168 'F for upwards of a half hour. You can test if the conversion is completed with a drop of iodine in a sample of the liquid. If it turns purple, it means it isn't done yet.

What enzymes are in the potatoes that would act like the enzymes in grain? Potatoes are not seeds that store sugars for the plant to feed on before it can use light for photosynthesis. Potatoes are part of the root system of the plant. I am not a botanist or a chemist so I may be waaaaayyyy off base but potato wine ain't beer. Do you know that the tuber contains enzymes to break down sugars? If they do why would they?

 

[jgmillr1]

What enzymes are in the potatoes that would act like the enzymes in grain? Potatoes are not seeds that store sugars for the plant to feed on before it can use light for photosynthesis. Potatoes are part of the root system of the plant. I am not a botanist or a chemist so I may be waaaaayyyy off base but potato wine ain't beer. Do you know that the tuber contains enzymes to break down sugars? If they do why would they?

No idea if they have the enzymes or not. Maybe you'd have to buy them separately.

 

[ong]

No idea if they have the enzymes or not. Maybe you'd have to buy them separately.

You would typically incorporate some malt (maybe 6 row for the extra DP), or use amylase enzyme to assist with conversion.

 

[bernardsmith]

But I suspect that the traditional country potato wines simply used the potato water as the source of flavor and all the fermentation was done on the potato and not with it. It was the added sugar or honey that was the source of the alcohol and not the more complex sugars that are in the spuds.