So I did some of these potatoes last night. Bagged them just with butter and soaked in the water bath @194F for 1hr+. Lightly salted and mashed through a sieve. To my surprise it turned out REALLY SWEET! (Not what I had in mind and not what I wanted) I’m not sure if the potatoes are the culprit, and they’re just the regular ones I used all the time. Still have a couple more from the same batch and I’m gonna do them the regular way tonight and find out. From what i know the starch in them turn to sugar in a certain temp(145-170F) and mine was way beyond that @194F. Baffles me…
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You are on your way to vodka. The starch converts to sugar which leads to alcohol.
You do realize that they had to pass through the 145°F-170°F range in order to reach 194°F, right?
Now that’s interesting to know… maybe I should improvise and head for vodka instead 
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I suppose so, but they’re probably in that temperature range for a very short period? And I guess that the traditional way of boiling dilutes the sugar taste with all the water that seeped in? So is there anyway that I can make sv potatoes that are not sweet?
Vegetables normally cook around 183°F. This is where the pectins breakdown. I’d suggest your potatoes were super sweet because they were overcooked.
1hr at 183°F will denature the potatoes. A second hour will bring them to mashing texture.
I do hope so Ember. I was curious myself at the high temp given and double checked on other websites and they all stated the same. The sweetness was overpowering and I couldn’t taste a hint of butter at all (I used ALOT) Didn’t go well at all with my salmon n broccoli. Guess I’ll need to toy around with lower temps and a different batch of potatoes.
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In my experience, that’s the secret ingredient to any successful Thanksgiving.
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Check out the YouTube channel called Sous Vide Everything. They do mashed potatoes and even mashed sweet potatoes, and it seems to work for them.
*I am not affiliated to that channel.
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I feel the SVE method of mashed potatoes too tedious. An easier method is to get a ricer to do so.
What a coincidence, I actually just watched that episode earlier!! If not mistaken they were on 180F for a couple of hours… update Did the rest of my potatoes the traditional way and they were not sweet at all. So for those who fancy sweet ones you may try sv-ing em @194F or holding them between 145F-170F for 2-3 hours (as per Kenji, Serious Eats)before finishing it the way you want.
I experienced with sv mashed potatoes using sve recommendations, unless one is using food saver vacuum bags, using even deep freezer type ziplocs to cook near boiling point, I can smell the contents outside the bag even if they’re confirmed not leaking. Probably the ziplocs are not designed to handle high temperature in the ranges of 180°F and beyond.
Smells escaping the bag is not an unusual thing. Most of the plastics used, event the vacuum bags, are permeable. The good quality vacuum bags are multilayer so there is less transferal of smells than some of the other plastic options.