How to Make Gin from Potatoes

Do you know it is easy to make a gin from potatoes? If you have been hunting online as to how to go about it, then we got you covered. One thing you need to know is that we are choosing potatoes since it’s possible to turn the starches in potatoes into sucrose. Before you proceed to make your gin from potatoes, you need to ensure you have all the essential things you may require. Some of the things you need to confirm you have in your checklist include;

Chopping board
Sharp knife
Fermenter with an airlock.
A jug
Large saucepan
Long plastic spoon
Alcohol hygrometer
Carboy
Thermometer
Potato masher or blender
Cotton material or old blankets for wrapping on the fermenter to retain heat

Having all the above-listed things, now you are ready for the gin making process. Below are some of the few steps to make your gin from potatoes. They include;

Wash the potatoes

Preparing your potatoes is the first step you need to do. Here you are required to wash your potatoes thoroughly. Ensure no soil or other dirt particle is on the potatoes. It’s good to wash them by using a soft piece of cloth that will remove any dirt on the potato.

Chop the potatoes into medium-sized and boil them

You need to boil the potatoes until they can be easily mashed. To know if your potatoes are ready when they appear soft. After the potatoes are ready, now you can remove the excess water and put the potatoes in your fermenter

Mash the potatoes

You can use the potato masher or the blender until the potatoes turn into a concentrated liquid solution.

Convert the starch to sugars

To convert the starch in the potato solution into sugars, you need to add hot and cold water and maintain the mixture at 70 °C. To increase the yield, people should add some sugar. Since adding sugar is optional, many people skip this step. Ensure you do not add a lot of sugar. If you are preparing 70% alcohol, you will require approximately I kg of sugar.

In this step, various reactions co-occur. At around 66 °C, the starch on potato begins to convert to sugar. The sugars will be used by yeast to convert them to alcohol.

Prepare and pitch the yeast

Before doing anything in this step, you need to check the recommended working temperatures of the yeast you are going to use. Make a yeast starter using the half-filled liquid from your fermenter. Allow the liquid to cool to average room temperatures. Also, at this step, you need to allow your fermenter to cool to room temperatures. Stir the yeast in the jug and pour it on the fermenter. Avoid making a mistake of pouring the yeast if the fermenter has not reached the normal working temperatures (room temperature)

Many people make another mistake of forgetting to leave some extra space above the solution. To avoid the lid of the fermenter to get popped out to the nearest place, you need to leave room for the reaction between gas and foam during fermentation.

Allow the mixture to ferment

During the fermentation process, there will be continuous bubbling on the airlock at the top of the lid of the fermenting vessel. Immediately you realize that there is no more bubbling, it is clear that the fermentation process is over and your gin is ready.

After that, you can now perform the first, second, and third distillation before you enjoy your gin.