Sweet potatoes!

[ong]

I’m not generally a GF brewer, but I thought it would be interesting to try an all sweet potato mash. I diced six lbs of potatoes and boiled with a gallon of water for half an hour, then roughly mashed them into a soup with a potato masher. I let it cool to 152, then added amylase and kept it between 148 and 152 for 90 minutes. After that I poured everything through a mesh bag, squeezed to get most of the wort out, and dunk-sparged the bag in another half gallon of water.

I ended up with around 1.25 gallons of lowish gravity wort. I brought it to the boil, added a small dose of Mosaic hops, and boiled for half an hour until I was at 1.042 and around .75 gallons. Added more Mosaic for a 5 minute hop steep at 180, then cooled and pitched yeast.

No idea what this will taste like, although the sweet wort was pleasant (tasted *much* sweeter than the gravity would indicate). I’ll post some notes after I carbonate the finished beer!

 

[xflibble]

I have made a couple. A lot depends on the potato, so flavours are quite variable, from clean to vegetal to tangy. Mostly water, so you need a lot of potato. It mashed pretty well so I never bothered with enzymes. Good luck!

A post on my first effort: https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.../6fdz2o/another_sweet_potato_beer_experiment/

 

[Miraculix]

Sounds interesting! The taste is so sweet because fructose is the dominant sugar in sweet potatoes and it tastes sweeter than many other sugars.

I read that sweet potatoes contain naturally enzymes that chop the starch up for you but I do not know how to boil them without sacrificing the enzymes.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

The brewer at local nano brewery I visit, brings out samples of different brews he's been experimenting with, and a mildly sour sweet potato brew was pretty good, though I did not guess sweet potato when I tasted it. He didn't share his process, and I didn't ask, so I don't know if it was the ingredient added to grains.

 

[TwistedGray]

I thought you had to bake them first for the conversion?

 

[ong]

I read that sweet potatoes contain naturally enzymes that chop the starch up for you but I do not know how to boil them without sacrificing the enzymes.

I was contemplating boiling and pureeing most of them and then using some grated (raw) sweet potato for the diastatic power, but I figured I’d just try this test balloon and see how it tastes before going down that road.

 

[ong]

I thought you had to bake them first for the conversion?

I just chose to boil to gelatinize the starches (like doing a cereal mash) but baking would also work.

 

[Miraculix]

I just chose to boil to gelatinize the starches (like doing a cereal mash) but baking would also work.

Baking would probably provide aditional flavours by caramelization and mailard raction. Crystal sweet potatoes, one could say

 

[ong]

Baking would probably provide aditional flavours by caramelization and mailard raction. Crystal sweet potatoes, one could say

Yeah, I was definitely thinking about that. And a higher finishing gravity, no doubt.

 

[bracconiere]

don't forget that if your using commercial alpha amylase you'll need to add gluco to the fermenter also, otherwise your FG will be way high...

when i could get bales of rice hulls at the garden store i made a rice beer out of a 20lb sack of white rice....learned i need both alpha, and gluco that way....otherwise my FG would be like 1.025

 

[ong]

I did add some gluco, but I’m not really sure if it was necessary (ended up quite dry). At any rate, the “beer” came out interesting, but not what I would call delicious. Very tangy, like a sorghum beer, and with a lot of sweet potato flavor (which was not unpleasant, just maybe a bit too dominant). Might be better as a flavor component in a more complex beer, with other adjuncts.

 

[bracconiere]

or cinnamon/nutmeg mulling spices....

 

[OpenSights]

What kind of yeast did you use?

 

[ong]

What kind of yeast did you use?

I used WY1469, West Yorkshire (mostly because I had some sitting around). And hopped with Mosaic. It was an interesting experiment — I asked my homebrew club if they could guess the fermentable (after telling them it wasn’t a grain), and no one got it, although a bunch of people suspected sorghum.

It has a seemingly permanent, very heavy starch haze, so I’m assuming my conversion wasn’t great.

 

[bracconiere]

according to cron-o-meter 2,700g's of sweet potato has 42g's protein, sure it's starch and not protein haze?

 

[ong]

according to cron-o-meter 2,700g's of sweet potato has 42g's protein, sure it's starch and not protein haze?

I’m not sure; I did dose the beer with sparkelloid and nothing at all dropped out.

 

[ong]

Ok: for the greater glory of science, I did an iodine test of the finished beer and it came out negative for starch.

 

[bracconiere]

add more could be vitamin c, that's how you quantify it starch iodine titration....also acording to cron-o-meter 2700g's sweet potato has 64mg's vitamin c....which will **** up your iodine test....but you can determine just how much vitamin c your now, healthy brew has...

 

[jorjon000]

Posted this elsewhere...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/sweet-potato-mash-experiment.211386/page-2

Similar to aomagman78...

I made all sweet potato beer (added 8oz of 6 row for enzyme activity just in case). I peeled, grated sweet potato. Held at 140F in 'mash' step, removed sweet potatoes from water, and boiled separately. Put the boiled sweet potatoes in a blender, and returned to mash now at 152F for 90min. I ended up at 1.048 (2.5 gal) with 6 kilos of grated potato. Added Saaz, and S04 which devoured the sugars, leaving me at 1.004. I pulled it off the trub (lots of it) within 10 days, as suggested previously. Now I'm holding at 60F and it's starting to clear up a bit.
Any suggestions on flavorings for secondary? I'm splitting my batch into several 1 gallon secondaries to test some ideas. I want to stay away from pumpkin pie, as I already made one for fall.

 

[bracconiere]

*

 

[jorjon000]

I found that it was a bit too bitter. So I rounded it out with orange peel and coriander and dry hopped a bit. Tastes much better but gave me a headache instantly. Any ideas? I'm hoping it's safe to drink but now I'm a bit confused.

Posted this elsewhere...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/sweet-potato-mash-experiment.211386/page-2

Similar to aomagman78...

I made all sweet potato beer (added 8oz of 6 row for enzyme activity just in case). I peeled, grated sweet potato. Held at 140F in 'mash' step, removed sweet potatoes from water, and boiled separately. Put the boiled sweet potatoes in a blender, and returned to mash now at 152F for 90min. I ended up at 1.048 (2.5 gal) with 6 kilos of grated potato. Added Saaz, and S04 which devoured the sugars, leaving me at 1.004. I pulled it off the trub (lots of it) within 10 days, as suggested previously. Now I'm holding at 60F and it's starting to clear up a bit.
Any suggestions on flavorings for secondary? I'm splitting my batch into several 1 gallon secondaries to test some ideas. I want to stay away from pumpkin pie, as I already made one for fall.

 

[xflibble]

Some kind of allergy/intolerance? That's my symptom when I drank barley-based beer after cutting out gluten...

 

[jorjon000]

Some kind of allergy/intolerance? That's my symptom when I drank barley-based beer after cutting out gluten...

I think it was the coriander (too much). I have another 2 gallons. To half a gallon I added 2 pears (peeled and pureed). It's fermenting quite a bit even after 3 more days. Once it stops, I will filter the pear mash out and bottle.