OK, first of all I shouldn't call this a vodka. But, for folks searching for info on using potatoes for spirits I figured "Potato Vodka" would make it easier to search. I have noticed some interest in using potatoes, so I am sharing my experience so far.
This is not a real recipe, yet, either, but rather a description of my process, my experience, and my observations. I would LOVE to have others try this out, or a variation of this, and report back. I would welcome any info from others as to what they have done with potatoes, or what they might suggest I try to do differently for my next batch. I'm kinda feeling my way in the dark on this one, not finding a lot of solid info to go on. I am specifically asking for comments or critique on any parts of my process here, no holding back!
Second of all, I will say up front that my experience so far boils down to: lot of work, low yield, big mess. But I do have a rare spirit, now, that I am having a great deal of fun drinking and sharing. And I happen to still enjoy making a big mess.
This is a little long winded, but if you are thinking about doing something with potatoes, you must not be afraid of work.
What I have found out is that potatoes are kind of a last resort for making spirits. My understanding is that they are around 15% usable starch/sugar compared to grains being closer to 80%. So, it takes a LOT of them.
I used those numbers to come up with this "recipe". I wanted to try to make the potato the majority contributor to this spirit, so here is the math I used:
100 lbs potatoes x 15% = 15 lbs fermentables
15 lbs grains x 80% = 12 lbs fermentables
And then based on 27 lbs of fermentables, I figured about 15 gallons of water.
I end up using a little more water to thin out the wort, and end up with around 1.05 OG
I use all malted grains to help ensure a good starch conversion.
I chose the variety of malts because I was afraid of what the potatoes might taste like. I kinda chickened out and figured if I was going to do all this work, the grains might salvage what might possibly be an otherwise retched spirit.
Since then I have more confidence in the potato being able to stand proud, so feel free to mix and match malts however you fancy.
(any feedback on that reasoning would be appreciated!)
Ingredients:
100 lbs white round potatoes
5 lbs malted barley
5 lbs malted wheat
5 lbs malted rye
3 tablespoons calcium chloride
yeast
Prepare the potatoes:
**Begin Safety Note: First of all, when trying to bake 100 lbs of potatoes, you might be tempted to just take the racks out of your oven, stuff it full of potatoes, quickly shut the door, and turn up the heat. That would be dangerous, and stupid, and only an idiot would do that.(
) The best way is to simply put the spuds on two racks in the oven, leave a little space around the edges for air flow, and bake them in waves. End Safety Note **Bake or roast the potatoes. I have done this a few different ways so far. I've slow baked them at about 150-200 for about 6-8 hours. I've baked them at 350 for about 1 hr 45 minutes. At Jimbo's suggestion, I roasted some in the ground by burying them in a hole on top of some hot beechwood coals (really enjoyed that). I've also smoked them. Each method worked to make the potatoes creamy and they had a "baked" potato texture and flavor. I think this is important because I have also done some by just boiling without roasting, and I think that finished spirit was a little more harsh than the ones I have done with baking first. So my current suggestion is to bake them at 350, and smoke 25 lbs if you can. I smoked them by simply building a plywood box, setting it over an electric hot plate, and putting water soaked beechwood chips on a metal tray. It produced a lot of smoke, and it infuses the whole potato, in just a few hours, with a backyard barbeque flavor. This is actually worth doing just for having a bunch of smoked potatoes to eat, they are delicious. After potatoes are baked and smoked, I cut them into quarters, I put them in my BOP skins and all, just cover them with water, and heat them just until they reach a boil. I do the boil for several reasons: I think the hot water draws out the flavors of the spuds, especially the smokiness, I think it help soften them up even more for the smashing phase, and as much as anything, I think sanitizing them by boiling is a good idea.
Mashing:
Using about 6-8 5 gallon buckets, I dump the hot water and potatoes into buckets, dividing it up so that no bucket is more that about 1/3 full. Then, using a drywall mixer on a 1/2 corded drill, I mix and smash them up in the buckets. There is a bit of a trick to this. If there is not enough water in the bucket, it will be difficult to get the potatoes to mash up well, but if there is too much water, the occasional potato will come zinging out of the bucket, and you will be impressed by its velocity. I just kind of keep dumping from bucket to bucket adding wet slurry or dry slurry as required. By just using enough water to cover the potatoes in the pot, it seems to work out to be the right consistency in the end. Once I have all the potatoes smashed up good in the buckets I let them cool to 150 degrees. While they are cooling, I grind up the malted grains, and heat up about 5 gallons of water for the mashing process. I add the grains to the water when it reaches about 160-165, mix it all up well, and then divide the grain mixture between all of the buckets of potatoes, and mix well. This has been ending up just under 150 degrees for me, and then I put all of the buckets together in a herd and cover with plastic and blankets. After about an hour, check for starch conversion with iodine. If temps have fallen too much, and I'm still worried about conversion, I dump the buckets back into the BOP, bring temps back up to 150 degrees, and then dump into my two trash cans for fermenting, and give it another hour. I have had good conversions each time. After everything is in the trash cans, I add about 10 gallons of cold water, divided up between the two trash cans. If this doesn't bring my temps down far enough to pitch yeast, I just cover and wait. Feel free to use chillers if you got 'em.
I have found it necessary to add 3 tablespoons calcium chloride to bring the pH up in my worts. I just test with pH strips, so it's no real science, but my first batch was quite sluggish about fermentation. I checked it and estimated a pH of around 3.0, so added the calcium chloride and it really took off. I've just been adding it ever since, and all seems to be going well. Strangely, I've had some fast ferments, and some slower ones. I don't know why, but I just let it go until it starts to clear. Anywhere from a few days to two weeks. When fermentation is complete, I rack off as much as I can from the trash cans, and then squeeze the rest through strainer bags to get the rest of the liquid out. This is kind of a pain, but I am used to it from fermenting my corn whiskeys on-grain, and it ends up being about 30% of the liquid, so I feel the need to do it. For my first batches I then put the liquid into carboys to settle for a few days, and then carefully racked off only the clear liquid to strip. For my latest batch, I went straight from bag straining to pot still, and stripped everything dirty. I actually think I prefer the taste of these latest low wines to the stuff I racked clear. But, I haven't done the spirit run on this latest batch, so, too soon to compare finished products yet.
With the 100 lb potato batch, I got 2-1/2 gallons low wines. I haven't stripped it yet, but based on my other runs, expect to end up with a little more than a gallon of finished spirit. I assume this recipe is could be scaled down for less work, but I figure if I'm going to do this at all I want to end up with enough product to enjoy and stash away to monitor aging. I have left everything white so far, so I can't say what oak would do with this.
Based on the runs I've done so far, I would not describe the finished spirit as a vodka. It has a nice creamy sweetness, a heavier mouth feel that the whiskeys I've been making, and a definite "earthiness". I'm afraid I don't know what to compare it to. I really like the smokey note in the spirit, very subtle. The smoke is not overwhelming at all, in fact if you really want the smoke to carry I would recommend doubling the amount of potatoes run through the smoker. I can honestly say that I am surprisingly happy with the way these runs have turned out.
I just got some enzymes, and I am considering dumping the malt, and doing a 100% potato mash. Of course, for me, that would probably mean bumping my potatoes up to TWO hundred pounds, and I'm not sure I can get my head wrapped around that yet.
Them undressed hot sweet taters is lookin plum sexxxy, they some big plump sexy girls, woop!