Making vodka from potatoes.

Two good reasons for using potatoes: 
1. Traditionally vodka is made of grain or potatoes to achieve the
smooth & soft aroma; witch is typical to commercial European vodkas. 
2. In Finland 1kg of sugar costs about 1,9e, 25kg sack of (feed)
potatoes from local Market

The recipe, which may lead to prosecute: 
20-25kg potatoes 
1kg of barley, malted and gristed 
50-100g of good (Turbo/Prestige/Partymann...) yeast (hydrated) 
Some fresh water 

Equipment needed: 
30 litre beer fermenter 
A large (30-50litre) kettle (I use a milk can...) 
A meat grinder (for mashing the potatoes) 
A large scoop or a "wash paddle" 
A hotplate with a thermostat 

1. Clean all the dirt from the potatoes, (don't bother to peel them) 
2. Put the potatoes in to kettle and cover them with water, bring to boil. Cook until the first ones break down -this should take about 1hr.
In meanwhile hydrate the yeast and mix 1kg malt and 2litre of water
(if you use homemade malt, don't dry them -it weakens the mysterious
"amylathic power"). 
3. Pour the water out from the kettle (use mittens, be careful).
Mash the potatoes in the grinder while they are hot.
(If done right the mash looks like thick porridge.) 
4. Put the mash to kettle (and adjust the hotplates temperature to 60C). Add 1/3 of the hydrated malt to the kettle and stir well. Wait until
the temperature has dropt to 65C. Add the rest of the hydrated malt
and stir in well. Let sit there for about 2 hours. Stir often. 
(If done right the wash should have turned flowing.) 
5. Turn the hotplate off. Put the kettle in somewhere cool.
When the temperature has dropped down to 25C pour to fermenter and
add yeast (no nutrients needed). First carbon dioxide bubbles should
rise after couple of hours; main fermenting takes about two days,
ready for distilling in four days -if you have done everything
as written. Result will be 7-12vol%, depending the starch level
of potatoes.

This is how I do it. There are many different ways too-but there
are always four steps. 
1. Softening the cellular walls. 
2. Mashing the potatoes. 
In industrial scale steps one and two are usually done by using
the HENZE-kettle, witch is basically a direct-steam heated 
pressure cooker (pressure is up to 8atm and the cooking time
about 40min). 
3. Converting the starch to maltose. 
4. Fermenting. 
Notice that there are only those 2L of water added to mash,
no more are required because the potatoes contains ¾ of water.

P.S. If the wash is done right you should be able to distill 
it with a still that has an inner heating element -I have a
2kW inner (silver plated) heating element in mine.

When I asked if he needed to filter the wash before distilling it,
Teemu replied .. No, no filtering required, but if want to be
really sure strain trough a kitchen sive (hole size about 2mm)
to get rid off the peaces of malt. The reason why grain washes
burn onto the element is that they contain a lots of cellulose
(like porridge). [Dry grain (rye) contains up to 40% of cellulose.]
Potato wash wich is mashed well and fermented dry contains such a
tiny amount of cellulose (like soup), so that it won't burn onto
the element! (Fresh potatoes contains only about 14% of cellulose.)
You can see this in practice -- typical ready grain wash is thick
stuff like (milk) cocoa, ready potato wash is flowing like coffee.
Just keep sure that the potatoes are mashed enough small bits
(>0.1mm) before adding the malt.

More scientifical explanation why the potato washes don't burn on
to the element:

Potato vs. Grain
 	 Water	 Proteins	Fats	 Starch	 Cellulose
Oats	12%	13%	7%	 60%	12%
Barley	12%	11%	2%	 63%	12%
Rye	12%	12%	2%	 62%	12%
Wheat	12%	11%	1.5%	64%	11%
Potatoes75%	 1.5%	0.1%	14%	1%


Now if we calculate the water and the starch as element-friendly
materials and others as un-element-friendly materials we found that
the grains contain ca. 26% of un-element-friendly materials (non 
fermenting, burnable, low heat transfer rate...), when potatoes
contains only ca. 2.6% of un-element-friendly materials! In practice
this means that there is only about half a kilo of un-element-friendly
materials in 25l batch of potato wash, but in 25l of grain wort the
number can be as high as 1.5kilos! Other reason why the potato mash
doesn't burn onto the element is convectional floating; the viscosity
of fermented potato mash is enough near of water to create the enough
rapid convectional floating.

potatoes work really well, It is the enzymes in the barley malt that
convert the starch in the corn, Potaoes are almost entirely starch,
and water. I use 20lb of 'taters with 5 gal of water, cook for an
hour+ mash them all up well, so it's a rumnny, thin mush.
Add a couple spoon fulls of acid blend. Add 2 lb of 6 row malt at
150 deg. maintain temp and stir for several hours.
let cool add another couple spoons of acid, and nutrient.
Add about 1 lb or 2 of pure sugar for some added kick.
Use Ec-1118 and wait a week It makes a really good spirit
after 2 distillations and a little polishing

                http://to.cur.lv/HomeDistillation
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