Poteen recipe

[Flatlands_Hillbilly]

Irish Poteen

5 gallons purified water
6 big potatoes
2 lbs malted 6 row barley
1 lbs rye
5 lbs cracked corn
1 1/2 lbs sugar
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
2 tsp sugar
1/2 warm water (90 - 110 degrees)

Boil your scrubbed taters (skin and all) off in 1 gallon of water or until soft. In your mash pot heat remaining water to 165 degrees with the barley and rye. Stir in sugar, making sure it completely dissolves, then stir in the corn and potatoes w/ potato water and continue stirring for 5 continuous minutes. Cover and let stand an hour and a half, stirring every fifteen minutes. Take and stir the sugar and yeast thoroughly into the 1/2 cup warm water and let stand 30 minutes. It should at least double in size so make sure your container you mix your starter is big enough to contain this. Strain out solids and into your fermenter, stir in the yeast and let ferment for at least 7 days or until the mash is ready to run. Specific Gravity of at least .095 which leaves you with an abv of about 12.25%. If'n my math be correct. Run a fast stripping run. Personally, after the foreshots are out, I save the whole run back down to about 10 proof in the tails on my stripping run. I don't run a thermometer, I just eyeball it and run my second spirit run at about a rate of three drips per second. I use propane and feather the heat until i get it where I want. I set the first two pints (heads) back and keep the last head or two, but no nore than two to blend in the final product. I run my hearts into the tails until it hits about 60 proof, and then set everything back until I get down to 20 proof. I'll keep the 20 to 10 proof to blend in to the final proofing. I then take the one or two heads, the hearts down to 60 proof and add in the deep tails (20 to 10 proof for flavor). I generally end up with a nice sweet smooth liquor that if I did right, runs around 100 proof 50% ABV. This recipe is from the late 1800's Ireland. I think that's probably why it's heavy on the corn more so than potatoes. I think this was dated 1883, but I can't find the page I found this on now. If that's the correct date, that would have been around or shortly after the potato famine in Ireland. It's just getting it's introduction in the States, but has made a big comeback in Europe as some crazy Irishman decided to mainstream his moonshine commercially and legally. I couldn't resist in bringing it back to a bit of outlaw status. At least in the making of it. Must be the Irish in me! lol Enjoy!!!