Interesting Recipe with Potatoes

[PublicEnemy]

Found an old family recipe. What's with the Epson salts and POTATOES ????
6 Gallons luke warm water
5 lbs sugar
1 can malt
1 cake of yeast dissolved in warm water
1 shot glass full of Epison salts
2 medium potatoes sliced
work about 4 days - add 1/2 teaspoon sugar to 12 oz bottle
Other recipe
16 oz malt
5 3/4 cups sugar

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

that sounds like a shiners recipe for vodka, might need to distill that

 

[Nosybear]

That looks a lot like a Prohibition-era recipe. Epsom salts add magnesium, which reduces the residual alkalinity of the water, although this much might give you the runs. Potatoes are simply a source of starch. I'm surprised they aren't mashed but that would be a complicated procedure for bathtub beer. I would bet on a strong cider-like flavor from this due to the high proportion of sucrose - cane sugar - in the recipe. I don't know how the starches in the potatoes will be converted, there's no enzymes in this recipe. I'd bet the result will be a cidery, cloudy, starchy approximation of beer but hey, during Prohibition you drank what you could get, right?