Ask The Brewmasters

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hello Andrew

Thanks a lot for this 360°tour on the subject. 

I'm interested on the pectin test protocole if possible to share.

Kind regards

Paul

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hi Kaj,

We've been brewing a potato lager with some friends here in Austin the past few years for the Super Bowl. The first year we used flaked potatoes (aka instant mashed potatoes). To say that mashed potatoes do not lauter well would be a massive understatement. No amount of rice hulls will help when you've got a layer of Idaho's finest sitting in or below your grain bed. While we were eventually able to collect enough wort into our kettle (after a 6 hour runoff), we had to great pretty creative and result to some methods that were less than ideal.

Jump ahead to the years since and we've been able to find some potato starch from a company online (Baker's Authority if I'm remembering correctly). In the two times we have used it we have had (nearly) zero issues or interruptions to our brew day. We found that the potato starch (essentially potato flour) readily mixed and solubilized into either buckets of water that were added to the mash, or into the mash directly. Happy to share more info with you, but the short version is that we were super stoked to find a way to make our tater beer each year without pulling our hair out. Go Spud!

Hello Andrew

Thanks a lot for this 360°tour on the subject. 

I'm interested on the pectin test protocole if possible to share.

Kind regards

Paul

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hi Brent!

Sounds awesome that you've found a way to brew with potato without stuck mash! Would love to learn more.

Cheers,

Kaj

Hi Kaj,

We've been brewing a potato lager with some friends here in Austin the past few years for the Super Bowl. The first year we used flaked potatoes (aka instant mashed potatoes). To say that mashed potatoes do not lauter well would be a massive understatement. No amount of rice hulls will help when you've got a layer of Idaho's finest sitting in or below your grain bed. While we were eventually able to collect enough wort into our kettle (after a 6 hour runoff), we had to great pretty creative and result to some methods that were less than ideal.

Jump ahead to the years since and we've been able to find some potato starch from a company online (Baker's Authority if I'm remembering correctly). In the two times we have used it we have had (nearly) zero issues or interruptions to our brew day. We found that the potato starch (essentially potato flour) readily mixed and solubilized into either buckets of water that were added to the mash, or into the mash directly. Happy to share more info with you, but the short version is that we were super stoked to find a way to make our tater beer each year without pulling our hair out. Go Spud!

Hello Andrew

Thanks a lot for this 360°tour on the subject. 

I'm interested on the pectin test protocole if possible to share.

Kind regards

Paul

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes? 

Hello Andrew

Thanks a lot for this 360°tour on the subject. 

I'm interested on the pectin test protocole if possible to share.

Kind regards

Paul

Hi Kaj,

While I do not normally work with potatoes, a quick search indicates that they do have high levels of pectin in the cell wall.  If so, mashing with potatoes could lead to the difficulties you have described, mainly due to the high viscosity from pectin, which gives jam and jelly their consistency.  The result is a difficult wort separation.

You can easily check for pectin with the pectin test.  A few drops of juice or wort is applied to acidified ethanol.  If pectin is present, it will come out of solution immediately, and it will be clearly visible.  Let me know if you need a protocol.

As an aside for brewers that do add fruit to beer and find a similar precipitate a few weeks later,  it is because beer is a modified, weaker form of acidified ethanol used in the pectin test, with a relatively low pH and a dilute level of ethanol.  This will eventually lead to precipitation of fruit pectin, as described above, but unfortunately, it happens sometime after the beer has left the brewery.  The pectin needs to be treated before addition to the beer.

A second possibility is starch in the pre-gelatinized flakes.  I have come across difficulties of high viscosity in wort separation from "pre-gelatinized" flakes before.  I wonder if the process used by the supplier to gelatinize starch is the same as what we in the brewing industry would use.  Starch needs to reach the gelatinization temperature in the presence of excess moisture to fully gelatinize.  This happens in a brewer's mash, but I have not seen the process for flake production.  Is there excess moisture?  Also, considering pre-gelatinization, if the gelatinized starch is allowed to cool without the presence of alpha amylase (liquefaction), then retrograded starch crystals can form.  A brewer's mash has plenty of alpha amylase, so this is usually not a worry.  Retrograded starch is very difficult, if not impossible, to gelatinize again, i.e., possibly when you are mashing pre-gelatinized flakes in your brewery.  The result is a difficult wort separation.   You can check for starch with an iodine solution.

One possible solution for the above mentioned problems is the addition of commercial enzymes to the mash.  Pectin will need a pectinase and starch will need an alpha amylase--in addition to alpha amylase from the malt.  They have proven to be very helpful and there are normally several choices available in the market.  Pay attention to optimal pH and temperature range when using these products.  Your supplier will be able to guide you if you choose this route.

Best regards,

Andrew

I read that potato can be used as an adjunct in brewing. We have a 30 hl batch size and I tried using potato flakes (dried potato) as 5 % of the grist. Unfortunately it makes lautering extremely slow, almost causing stuck mash. The rest of the grist is European pilsner malt, so the enzymes should be sufficient. Any tips how to get better lautering performance with potatoes?