Bananas Foster Creamy Ale (All Grain) **pic intensive**

Aroma is strong banana with vanilla undertone. flavor is spot on banana/rum smoothie.

one8tvw said:

Has anyone else that said they were going to brew this started?

Click to expand...

Yes. Currently at 9 days in primary and moving to secondary later this week. I changed up the grain bill a bit and went with different hops, since my lhbs didn't have any saaz on hand:

50% 2-row
25% caramel/crystal 20
25% white wheat

.75 oz hallertau mittelfruh @ 60
.25 oz hallertau mittelfruh @ 10

Everything else is/will be the same. Also, it's a BIAB.

Thanks for pioneering this. I'm hoping I'll be as happy with mine as you are with yours. This is my 2nd brew ever, so I guess we'll wait and see.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention I also dialed back the OG to 1.050 in order to get a final ABV around 5.2 (not including whatever the bananas and rum do to it).

Yes - Currently in secondary on banana puree.

Only thing I changed was going with Cascade for my hops.

Plan to keg it in two and a half weeks.

LLBeanJ said:

Yes. Currently at 9 days in primary and moving to secondary later this week. I changed up the grain bill a bit and went with different hops, since my lhbs didn't have any saaz on hand:

50% 2-row
25% caramel/crystal 20
25% white wheat

.75 oz hallertau mittelfruh @ 60
.25 oz hallertau mittelfruh @ 10

Everything else is/will be the same. Also, it's a BIAB.

Thanks for pioneering this. I'm hoping I'll be as happy with mine as you are with yours. This is my 2nd brew ever, so I guess we'll wait and see.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention I also dialed back the OG to 1.050 in order to get a final ABV around 5.2 (not including whatever the bananas and rum do to it).

Click to expand...

i see you did not add the flaked corn. A dialed down version really wouldnt be that bad , mine has a unique heat to it, almost like a real boozie bananas foster. Well i hope it turns out great.
Dont forget to post pics, being that we are far apart thats the only way we will be able to compare.

nsrooen said:

Yes - Currently in secondary on banana puree.

Only thing I changed was going with Cascade for my hops.

Plan to keg it in two and a half weeks.

Click to expand...

Cascade would hop this up nicely i bet

keep us updated

I'm looking forward to brewing this. Waiting 2-4 more weeks to plan for this beer to be ready to kick off the spring.

i just entered 2 bottles into a homebrew contest, lets see how they fair

Anyone done this as a 3 gallon? If so what was your recipe?

So I'm assuming this recipe is a big fat "GO" YES?

one8tvw said:

i just entered 2 bottles into a homebrew contest, lets see how they fair

Click to expand...

Nice. Please let us know how they do.

An update on my version of this recipe...

Currently at 12 days on the puree in secondary. A couple more days and I'll rack to a clean carboy and cold crash for about a week, then into the keg it will go. Will post a pic and critique when I pull my first pint in about 3 more weeks or so. Getting anxious to see how it turned out.

Sub'd

subscribed

This turned out well. Followed recipe except substituted cascade hops.

Clean finish, subtle aroma and taste of banana and rum. Would be up to brewing again at some point. Very drinkable / enjoyable.

I did have puree "Floaties" in my glass so might try cold crashing or using some type of clearing agent before I keg to help all of the particles fall out next time.

What do you think about using a dram or less of banana extract with the real bananas too? I did this with a coconut porter and it worked well...i used toasted coconut for the toast flavor and the extract...i thought the real coconut helped cancel out that fake coconut taste you get with extract.

So how much rum did you use total? You mention the 8 oz with the bananas, got that part, then you mentioned 6 oz with another vanilla bean in secondary? And then 4 more oz in the bottling bucket? Thanks in advance for clarifying. Great recipe!

This thread has inspired a couple friends and I to brew up a banana stout. I'll be using 8lbs of bananas in about 7.5 gal of beer. I'm wary but looking forward to it.

smokinghole said:

This thread has inspired a couple friends and I to brew up a banana stout. I'll be using 8lbs of bananas in about 7.5 gal of beer. I'm wary but looking forward to it.

Click to expand...

That sounds like it might be a winner! Oatmeal Stout?

Please let us know how that stout goes?!?!!!!!!!

There will certainly be flaked oats in the beer.


Type: All Grain Date: 2/15/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 7.50 gal Brewer: Adam Cole
Boil Size: 8.97 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: Penrose Kettle and 13gal Igloo Cooler
End of Boil Volume 8.22 gal Brewhouse Efficiency: 82.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 7.20 gal Est Mash Efficiency 86.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients


Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (1.8 SRM) Grain 1 70.6 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.8 %
1 lbs Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.9 %
1 lbs CaraBrown (55.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.9 %
12.0 oz De-Bittered Black Malt (Dingemans) (550.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.4 %
8.0 oz Dark Crystal (165.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.9 %
4.0 oz Chocolate (Briess) (350.0 SRM) Grain 7 1.5 %
2.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 8 24.4 IBUs
1.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 9 12.8 IBUs
1.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 10 6.0 IBUs
7.50 lb Banana (Boil 0.0 mins) Flavor 11 -
5.00 Items Vanilla Bean (Boil 0.0 mins) Spice 12 -
2.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml] Yeast 13 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.066 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.016 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 43.2 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 33.1 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body Total Grain Weight: 17 lbs
Sparge Water: 2.72 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 5.31 gal of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Add 2.98 gal of water at 200.7 F 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 2.72 gal water at 168.0 F
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

smokinghole said:

This thread has inspired a couple friends and I to brew up a banana stout. I'll be using 8lbs of bananas in about 7.5 gal of beer. I'm wary but looking forward to it.

Click to expand...

you know...its people like you that keeps my girlfriend mad at me...just one more sweetie.

If your girlfriend is anything like my wife then if it wasn't brewing she'd find something to be mad about. I went through between 300 and 350lbs of malt since September. So there's lots of beer in bottles at my house and my parents basement.

This will just be first in the line of planned batches. What my friends and I do is all brew the same recipe (they live in Utah and Illinois) then send each other the finished product to see how different the same recipe is brewed by each of us.

I think banana stout would be fun to brew. I was originally going to try and get a bottle of extract flavoring from Virginia Dare but they never responded to my request. I tried getting a free sample using my university as a means to justify the request. No dice. Then I found this thread and figured that I'd just use real bananas because they're easier to get and more in line with my brewing philosophy.

Was anyone that tried this able to have anywhere near decent head retention? I brewed a similar beer recipe with 3 lbs. banana/3 gal of beer. Nice clean carbonation, but the head dissipates within 15-30 seconds. Thinking it has to do with the oils in bananas?

**Also, after about 4-5 weeks in the bottle, the banana flavor drastically decreased. Inherent with bananas? Or any ideas on retaining the flavor longer?

Brewing this Friday for SWMBO. Any further recommendations from you guys who already brewed this?

This sounds amazing!

sorry friends, i have been out of town for about 4 weeks...with no internet!

im excited to see how this thread is staying alive.

i still have now word on how the beers i put in the competition fared.

i saw another post about a Banana Stout, that sounds intense!

my bottles still have great banana flavor, the rum has seemed to mellow out too. The yeast cakes in the bottles are about 1/16th of an inch thick too. the head retention is "alright".

any word from other brewers on there batches yet?

I'm brewing my stout version on saturday. I will update on how that turns out.

My version of this has been in Secondary on the Bananas (etc) for 9 days. The smell has been wonderful. Not going to even bother to taste until it hits 14 days in the secondary. Friends have been lining up for this since I told them about it.

30 minutes into boil.

5.5 gallons of beautiful golden nectar in the term chamber.

I have had my batch in the secondary for five days now. I tasted what was left in my siphon tube after I racked onto the bananas and I was blown away! I have never had a beer taste so good that early on in fermentation. I could taste lots of the vanilla and brown sugar. I cannot wait to drink this one!

5.5 in the ferm chamber! Time to buy a sculpture and some pumps, my back hurts :/

Here's an update/postmortem on my batch...

I'll be honest. I wasn't that impressed with it. It's my own fault though. I got very creative with the grain bill and my version hardly resembled one8tvw's at all.

Overall, it wasn't bad, just kind of blah. There were no off-flavors or anything like that. The banana flavor was quite prominent, as were the rum and vanilla, but there was no real malty beer flavor behind it. My wife tried it and she had the same opinion. She could taste the flavors, but said it didn't really taste like beer. I guess that's what having 25% wheat in the grain bill gets me.

On the other hand, I gave away about 2 gallons to a non-homebrewer buddy who prefers lighter beers and is a big fan of fruity wheats and he absolutely loved it. As did his wife. They both thought it was some of the best beer they've ever had. Go figure.

Also, I had a lot of floaties from the banana and though this was a 5 gallon batch, I only got about 3.25 gallons into the keg because it kept clogging my syphon. I guess I could've tried to screen it, but I didn't.

So, where does that leave me? Well, not being one to give up easily, I'm trying again. Just brewed up a fresh 4 gallon batch two days ago. I decided to use the same recipe as one8tvw's, but again scaled back to a lower ABV (retained the original grain %'s, but scaled down to ~1.052 OG - actually came in at 1.056) and used some Cascade hops I had on hand, which I adjusted to match the original IBUs. I pitched on top of the yeast cake from a hefeweizen (Wyeast 3068) that I kegged the same day and am fermenting around 69-70° ambient to get some banana esters from the yeast.

When it comes time to secondary, I'm going to line my fermenting bucket with a sanitized paint strainer and put the bananas and vanilla beans on that so I can pull it out when done to eliminate the problem with floaties I had before.

I'll report back when I have an evaluation of the finished product.

Not a bad idea with the paint strainer bag. I'm going to use that idea for my banana stout batch.

Wanted to quasi-hijack to share a slight variation that we brewed today. Banana Split. In secondary: adding bananas, cocoa nibs, vanilla bean and Bacardi torched cherry rum.

Im gonna try this for my next batch but wanted to clarify something first, you added split vanilla beans to the boil? Why this instead of the secondary?

Gravity down to 1.012, time to go to secondary. The flavor of the sample is awesome. It seems you nailed the grain bill on this thing, it also seems the perfect base for the addition of banana, rum, and vanilla.

Hey One8tvw, did you ever add any more rum beyond the original 8oz. and that used at bottling? I read one of your posts when you were considering 6 additional ounces.

Any reservations about adding the rum soaked vanilla bean late in the secondary or for the whole tertiary? Mine's going on the "adult baby food" in the morning and I haven't soaked (or bought) my vanilla bean(s) yet! I'm going to leave it on the bannana for 3 weeks then toss it in the tertiary... just debating on when to add the vanilla.

So Ive been planning on brewing this and now its next in the lineup. I have all the ingredients but the saaz. Should I order the Saaz or is there something else that will do fine with this recipe?