Curing Sweet Potatoes

Ever had Christmas lights in your oven before? In my last post I mentioned the possibility of a sweet potato wine, that is now one step closer to reality. Wife, daughters, and I dug sweet potatoes this weekend, and got probably 35 pounds of them. Sweet potatoes have to "cure" before being eaten, a process that converts the starches to sugars and gives them the sweet taste. This process involves 7-10 days in steady 90 degree temperatures with high humidity. Last year I just left them on the back porch for a few weeks, but this year I wanted to try a little more controlled environment. Unfortunately I don't currently have a greenhouse (that's a project on the wish list) so I went to the internet to look for options and came by this one. The process is fairly simple, load up your oven with however many pounds of sweet potatoes it will hold on the top rack, add a pan of water for humidity and a strand of 100 incandescent Christmas lights for heat on the bottom rack, leave the door cracked, and in 7 days or so you will have cured sweet potatoes. Apparently 100 lights is the magic number for maintaining 90ish degrees, but they have to be incandescent, do not use LED, they burn much cooler. I have been checking the temperature daily and it's been in the upper 80's to lower 90's every time. If its on the higher side I crack open the door a little wider, but really it's been fairly foolproof. Sissy wanted meatloaf on Monday so we did have to pull them out for an hour or so, just wait until the oven cools back down and toss them back in, no problem at all. I have to admit it is strange seeing Christmas lights in the oven, and having to remove them to cook is slightly inconvenient, but if the results are there its a situation I can certainly live with. Once the cure process is complete I will be converting 5 or 6 pounds of them into wine, more on that later but I am looking forward to trying it. Other root veggie options I am considering are carrot wine and parsnip wine, but let's get the sweet potato fermenting and we'll go from there. Cheers!