Okay!!! I ran the wash through last night; it was my first run so I had a lot of fun! I'm not sure what % the wash was (what's the best way to check? Can I use an alcometer?) but my end result was about 250ml of 55% out of a little under 2l of wash. Next time I'm going to do a much bigger wash and maybe run it through twice. I have a 10l pot still based on a pressure cooker. I'm pretty sure I collected too long because it smells a tiny bit off, of course I'm going to drink it anyways because it's my first run!
Taste: It's a bit hard to describe but it's got a sweetish vegetable flavour that reminds me of some homemade poteen I had when I was in Ireland. Maybe slightly tequilaish or very, very light jaegermeister? Definitely worth a try... I'm thinking it'd work well in a Bloody Mary.
I'm going to post some photos of my still in the photo section...
So evidently significant quantities of heat was sufficient to break down the inulin? How long did you have to cook the 'chokes?
Anyone know where to get inulinase to do the process enzymatically or of any yeast strains that produce inulinase on their own? I'd like to do this myself but I want to use enzymes so I can minimize the energy required to do it.
Hi,
Do you have access to a field of sunchokes? I've done a fair bit of research lately... Apparently the best thing to do is harvest the stalks of the sunchokes, just before they flower(might be too late now). At that point the sugar hasn't been converted to inulin yet and is concentrated as sap in the stem. The idea is to extract the juice from the stems which can then be fermented as is.
If you're starting from tubers, I cooked them for about 10 minutes, until they were soft, then mashed them completely and kept boiling them for about another 30-45 minutes. They fermented out without any problems, although I don't have specific numbers, as it was before I had gotten an alcometer.
I'm not sure if the traditional iodine test for starch would work with inulin so it might be difficult to know when conversion is complete.
I know that inulinase producing yeasts exist, mainly in the ethanol-for-fuel industry (at least they do here in Europe), but they might not be commercialised as of yet.
It's coming up on harvesting season for 'chokes here in France so I'm going to be hitting the field to dig up a bunch sooner or later; let me know if you manage to find a yeast strain, I would be very interested.
Phanmo
"I look up to the heavens for a ray of hope to shine; and there it is in neon: Liquor, Beer and Wine"
I know of some yeast strains but they're only available from the ATCC and are in the $175-250 US range for freeze-dried. These are for research and you'd have to culture your own replacements. Personally I want to avoid all the heating and energy input as much as possible. How did things go for you in France?
Here's an inulinase-producing strain: ATCC (this one is $250; there are cheaper ones)
I do have some farmer friends whose grow sunchokes but I have definitely missed the flowering. I have access to a ton or so of tubers though.
I'd be very interested in any numbers you have from your last round. With such thick goopy substrate to ferment, how can you check sugar content? I would think you'd have to use a refractometer. What strains did you use to ferment your sunchoke mash???
Cheers, and as an aspiring farmer and foodie, I'm jealous that you live in France.
I haven't gotten around to doing any more topinambours this season yet. We've had some pretty heavy weather for the past little while so it hasn't been possible to dig 'em up. At the moment I'm trying out a few high gravity sugar washes but I'll probably get to the topinambours sooner or later. I don't know what abv they fermented out to because I didn't have a hydrometer. As you said, it's a pretty thick gloopy mess so I don't think it would work that well anyways.
That site is pretty interesting, although I probably won't take advantage of it right now as I'm moving soon and my facilities will be a little more restricted. I couldn't see any quantities though, do you know what the sample size is? As for the yeast strain I used, just plain baker's yeast.
The food is pretty damn good, but as a Torontonian used to eating an extremely multicultural diet, I'm a little disapointed by the lack of non-french foods and products. Would you believe that there is only one shop in all of Poitiers that sells sesame seed oil? At home you can get it anywhere, even a service station shop!
"I look up to the heavens for a ray of hope to shine; and there it is in neon: Liquor, Beer and Wine"
I don't know the sample size either. Given that they cater to research, I would guess in the low grams, though. Basically as little as you could viably reproduce using your own media. I could ask a professor friend who would know and get back to you with a number.
With your sunchoke fermentation, do you recall how much water you added proportional to the solids for your fermentation? Did you have to distill the glop in a double-boiler or did you find a way to filter? Could you figure your fermentation alcohol % by your distilled yields? And, finally, what makes you say that it distilled out successfully? Stopped bubbling, taste, etc? Thanks for answering; I'm really interested in these as a fermentation source in the future, when society has crumbled and sugar is too expensive to justify its fermentation. Just kidding, kind of.
That is peculiar about the sesame oil. I suppose that we living in North America are used to an immigrant/melting pot population which is quite different from populations in Europe and elsewhere that maintain a semblance of historical continuity of their unique identities. Is one better condition than the other? At least in Europe (or elsewhere) you can often travel only a few hundred kilometer (or much less) and experience a radically different culture and diet. Much less so in the de-localized world of Wal-mart, KFC, and even Whole Foods (dunno if you have them in Canada). I suppose I should not get too intellectual on this tip... Man, alcohol sure is great though, huh?!
I can't remember exactly how much water I added; it was more or less the amount needed to cover the sunchokes while they cooked. After blending them with a stick blender, it was about the same consistency as a thickish soup. It separates out during fermentation so when it was finished I siphoned off the liquid in between the floating solids and the yeast on the bottom, then sparged the solids a little. When I say it finished I mean that it had stopped bubbling through the airlock and it was "dry" tasting. I couldn't begin to tell you what the yield was from the first attempt but from the second it was roughly 1.5 liters of 65abv from a approx 15L wash, so the wash probably finished out around 8 to 10 abv. It was more than a year ago so I can't remember exactly and the two sunchoke washes were my first runs so I didn't really know what I was doing.
Check out these links... The pdfs are interesting and have full reports whereas the others are just summaries, but they still give a few results and ideas, notably ideal ratios of solids to liquids. I was wrong about the stalks, apparently the juice still contains inulin, not sugar as I had originally said.
I think that sunchokes are more or less ideal for producing neutral alcohol, maybe second to sugar beets, but if we can do it by just harvesting the stalks it would be a lot easier than digging 'em up.
"I look up to the heavens for a ray of hope to shine; and there it is in neon: Liquor, Beer and Wine"
Nice idea - its not one I had concidered before. They certainly grow easily enough. Did a search on google for converting inulin to fructose and came up with the following link which talks about roasting to process the inulin. http://goosefootacres.blogspot.com/2007 ... rages.html
How good would you say the solids separation was? I ask because I am considering crushing and juicing like what was done in one of your articles. I need a pretty clear wash because my still is an internal element keg boiler. I may just try both ways in small batches and see what I get. Gonna try the acid hydrolysis method to unlink the fructose molecules out of the inulin chain. I'll document everything and post back here with results. I want everyone to be making sunchoke vodka!
I guess since I just dug mine they'll be a little lower in sugar but they taste pretty sweet as it is. Have a look:
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Hard to say... I don't really remember how clear it was. I did pass all of it through a kitchen strainer after siphoning it off, so there weren't any solids larger than a mm. I use a potstill on a stovetop so I haven't had to worry about scorching.
You've got a nice harvest of the ugly knobbly bastards!
BTW I just realised: jaidormi = j'ai dormi!
Keep updating, especially about the acid hydrolysis attempt.
"I look up to the heavens for a ray of hope to shine; and there it is in neon: Liquor, Beer and Wine"
Salut Manu, j'ai pas pu trouver les pages à propos des topinambours... Quels sont les numéros de pages, si tu les as à disposition?*
Hey Dnderhead! Hmmm, freezing... might be something to look into. Do you remember where you came across it?
*for those who don't speak french: I couldn't find the pages on sunchokes, do you remember what page numbers they were?
"I look up to the heavens for a ray of hope to shine; and there it is in neon: Liquor, Beer and Wine"
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