Buy Now Another thing you will need is some way to distill your vodka to make it purer and tastier! 105 and comes with a free alcoholometer, negating the need for a alcohol hydrometer. Alternatively you can build your own using a beer keg which you can find instructions for here.
Now I will begin the main part of the guide - actually making your vodka! Firstly get all your potatoes together and wash the, all under the tap - use cold/lukewarm water so you don't activate the starch too early. Scrub them down to get rid of any dirt that may be on the outside.
What type of potatoes should I use, The answer is - it doesn't matter! You could use maris piper or baking potatoes but as long as it has starch in it the end result will be almost the same. Why not try using different types and see how it affects the final taste!
Personally I always use British white potatoes as I grow them myself and use these for cooking too so always have some on hand! But use whatever you have available and it won't affect anything too much. Back to preparing your spuds. You won't need to peel them as it will all be mashed together at the end anyway and you're only using the juices that come out of the potatoes. Now chop them up - roughly quarter them then slice each piece once more.
Now put all your potatoes into your large saucepan and boil them for around 15-20 minutes. You want them to be nice and soft but definitely not flaky and dry, they should be slightly under-cooked. Now strain the water and place all the potatoes into your fermenter. You may need to make several trips so wrap your fermenter in a few blankets to keep it warm if you need to do this!
Now when you have all your potatoes in the fermenter you should blend/mash them all up. You may need to add some boiling water to make it easier and don't be afraid to do this as it won't affect things too much. You want your potato mix to be as close to liquid as possible - imagine mashed potatoes but with under-cooked potatoes and more liquid. Now we need to convert all the starches in the potatoes into sugars so we can ferment them with yeast. Now you have two options for how to proceed.
You can either add sugar or not. If you add sugar you will get around 2L of 70% vodka whereas you'll get about 2L of 50% vodka without sugar. If you choose to add sugar add it now - about 2kg of sugar should be a good amount for this amount of potatoes.
Now, in a large jug, put your barley malt and some water in, use cold water or your enzymes will be killed. Mix this all together and add it to your fermenter when the temperature falls to 66°C. This is the best working temperature for the enzymes to break down the starch into sugars.
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