sweet taters

[Guest guest]

I was watching Alton Brown on the food channel the other night and he was

talking about sweet potatoes and yams. He claims they are very moist and wet

when taken from the ground so they are put in a kiln to dry before being sold.

He says it keeps them from going bad.

 

When he said kiln all my red lights started to flash. I associate kilns with

very high temperatures. Anyone have any insight on this?

 

Shari

 

 

[Guest guest]

I researched this on the Internet, and what the kiln does is speed up the

curing process which turns the starches into sugars, making it sweeter.

The natural process takes about six weeks, but by creating a controlled-

atmosphere storage to dry out the sweet potato, the process is shortened

to two weeks. When you hear the term kiln, you think of the ovens they

use to harden pottery, but this seems to not be of the same temperature.

If it was a high temperature, the sweet potato would end up being baked

instead of dryed out and hardened. It seems to me the process is similar

to the process of making Zwiebach (literally twice-baked), which is bread

dried in an oven at low temperatures, which hardens the bread and makes

it sweeter.

Ron Koenig

RawSeattle , " SV " <shavig@v...> wrote:

>

> I was watching Alton Brown on the food channel the other night and he

was talking about sweet potatoes and yams. He claims they are very

moist and wet when taken from the ground so they are put in a kiln to dry

before being sold. He says it keeps them from going bad.

>

> When he said kiln all my red lights started to flash. I associate kilns

with very high temperatures. Anyone have any insight on this?

>

> Shari

[Guest guest]

Shari,

 

Don't worry. Put the sweet tater in a pot with soil and you'll see that

it will sprout.

 

Helen

[Guest guest]

yum =)

RawSeattle , Helen <helensy@c...> wrote:

>

> Shari,

>

> Don't worry. Put the sweet tater in a pot with soil and you'll see

that

> it will sprout.

>

> Helen

>