This week I think I'm going to take the plunge and see if I can't get any conversion out of some sweet potatoes and bananas. Here's the recipe I'm planning, as usual those with greater experience and wisdom than I are welcomed to suggest modification:
Wild Rice Chamomile Cream Ale:
2.5-3 gallon batch
2 lbs sweet potatos
1 lb ripe bananas
0.5 lb flaked corn
0.5 lb wild rice grits
1.5 lbs rice syrup solids
0.25 lbs clover honey
0.25 lbs maltodextrin (4 oz)
0.3 oz cascade at 60 min
1 oz chamomile at 60 min
0.7 oz saaz at 15 min
US-05 Ale Yeast
Plan: cook the corn and wild rice into a thick porridge to gelatinize their starches. Grate the sweet potatos and then blend with the bananas and a little filtered water to make "enzyme smoothie". Mix with the grain porridge and do a step mash (91-122-152, about an hour at each, maybe longer at 152 if I can stand it), then slowly raise to a boil to gelatinze the sweet potato and banana, as they do in that one paper from the 1920's to make "sweet potato syrup". Then strain into the brew kettle through my grain bag, "sparge" a few times with enough 170°F water to make up a bit over 3 gallons, add the rice syrup solids and maltodextrin and start the boil. Add the honey at flameout.
I feel fairly confident that this process should work well enough; whether it comes out like a cream ale or not, who can know? Should brew it up Friday or Saturday, after I bottle the Quarry Forest Gruit and rack the IIPA to secondary to free up a carboy. In any case, I promise to post updates as it comes along, since most of the people who've started threads on sweet potatos have vanished into the void before telling of their results . I'm hoping for a quick-maturing beer!
Wild Rice Chamomile Cream Ale:
2.5-3 gallon batch
2 lbs sweet potatos
1 lb ripe bananas
0.5 lb flaked corn
0.5 lb wild rice grits
1.5 lbs rice syrup solids
0.25 lbs clover honey
0.25 lbs maltodextrin (4 oz)
0.3 oz cascade at 60 min
1 oz chamomile at 60 min
0.7 oz saaz at 15 min
US-05 Ale Yeast
Plan: cook the corn and wild rice into a thick porridge to gelatinize their starches. Grate the sweet potatos and then blend with the bananas and a little filtered water to make "enzyme smoothie". Mix with the grain porridge and do a step mash (91-122-152, about an hour at each, maybe longer at 152 if I can stand it), then slowly raise to a boil to gelatinze the sweet potato and banana, as they do in that one paper from the 1920's to make "sweet potato syrup". Then strain into the brew kettle through my grain bag, "sparge" a few times with enough 170°F water to make up a bit over 3 gallons, add the rice syrup solids and maltodextrin and start the boil. Add the honey at flameout.
I feel fairly confident that this process should work well enough; whether it comes out like a cream ale or not, who can know? Should brew it up Friday or Saturday, after I bottle the Quarry Forest Gruit and rack the IIPA to secondary to free up a carboy. In any case, I promise to post updates as it comes along, since most of the people who've started threads on sweet potatos have vanished into the void before telling of their results . I'm hoping for a quick-maturing beer!