Wartime Farm Potato Beer??

[oldjiver]

I watched a TV programme a couple of nights ago called (I think) A Wartime Farm. It had a piece on making potato beer?? Apparently they tried to substitute potatoes for malt to keep the beer flowing during the difficult days of the second world war. The presenters didnt really seem to have a clue what they were doing, which consisted of boiling up some spuds with hops and pronouncing it good before even fermenting it??
I know potatoes are used to make vodka but I understood a % of malt was required to convert the potato starch to sugar. Surely theres no enzymatic action in spuds alone is there?

 

[oldjiver]

Since posting I have had a look round. Apparently people who make mashes for reasons other than beer :whistle: put a spoonfull of enzyme into their foul concoctions!!

 

[cnelsonplumber]

I watched that programme. Interestingly they covered the mash and the boil, but seemed to miss the fermentation before drinking the stuff :sick:

 

[Stone Cold]

Yeah total cowboys, there are some recipes about tho it looks like if anyones brave enough?

 

[RobWalker]

Same, its available online somewhere! I think they subbed some malt for potatoes, and converted the starch to sugar. It would add pretty plain alcohol flavour, but maybe you could check out a potato wine recipe if you wanted to go for it?

 

[jonewer]

Total nonsense. It would have ended up as hoppy potato soup which would then have gone rancid!

 

[oldjiver]

Its a sad thing that every time I have seen a TV programme on a subject I know a bit about they seem to make mistakes. So I presume I am being misled on subjects I know b*g*er all about if its the same on average!

 

[Cononthebarber]

Hold it! Are you suggesting that TV lies to us?????!!!!!!!

 

[evanvine]

Hold it! Are you suggesting that TV lies to us?????!!!!!!!

Wash your mouth out! Of course the TV doesn't lie, any more than any other media! :whistle:

 

[oldbloke]

Potato wine is simple enough, so beer shouldn't be a problem. No additional enzymes required. Can't imagine it'd taste much like real beer, but in wartime people get desperate, and if the tats were a bulking agent rather than a total malt replacement it wouldn't be so bad.
Like parsnips and carrots, older ones that have seen a frost are better as the starch conversion is part-done by that, but more gets converted in the boil and what's left as starch is, I think, attackable by yeast.