Banana Bread Holiday Ale

What do you think of this recipe. I am going to try it with the yeast cake that will be available in 3 days.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Wyeast Weihenstephan 3068 with 500ml starter
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU: <10
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): none

This ale utilizes the sweet banana esters of the Wyeast Weihenstephan yeast to bring out a smooth, banana bread taste. The flaked oats give a soft mouthfeel. The specialty grains give a hint of nutty bread. This will be the Edwort's Apfelwein of Spiced Holiday Brews.....or not.

No real bananas will be harmed making this beer, although they can be used in the secondary at your discression.

8 lbs. American 2-row
2 lbs flaked oats
1 lb. biscuit malt
1 lb. honey malt
.25 lbs. crystal 90 (optional for raisin banana bread)

1 oz. Mt. Hood 60 minutes

1 teaspoon vanilla extract into secondary
1/2 teaspoon of almond or walnut extract into secondary
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon into secondary

Wyeast Weihenstephan 3068 with 500ml starter

Mash at 154 for 60 minutes

Ferment near 72° for 10 days.
No secondary fermentation

This is in the Secondary. Like any of you care anyway. Don't you see the pure genius of this recipe? Go ahead, just keep reading your BYO and dumping in your can of extract.....

sorry about that last comment. I had a little too much of my Stone IPA.

I think it sounds really interesting. Not my taste, perhaps, but a great experiment. Let us know how it turns out.

Chad

Bananna & Cloves (yeast) and additional flavorings and spices to make up the nutbread portion. Interesting but I have a feeling it will take on a slightly different result than expected.

Let us know how it turns.

- WW

That yeast is used to work on wheat, I don't think it's going to give the same flavor profile on two row. But, I dunno. It is a cool idea though. I had a thread on a choconanner stout (wheat/chocolate/roasted/hefe yeast) about 6 months ago and also got no replies. I don't think nanner's are very popular here

I've used that yeast on a cider as suggested by someone in that section of the forum and its character still came through regardless of there being no wheat, hopefully you'll get a similar result.

even with the few responses on this, I'd like to hear your final results. I love banana bread. I think this is an interesting/fun flavored beer. I'm not a huge fan of flavored beers, except where the flavoring actually comes from how it is brewed and is very subtle.

Keep us posted!

I drink Banana beer and like it. It's not like the other fruit beers but I've never had it spiced.

Let us know how it turns out.

I absolutely love the banana esters in a good German hefe. For me, that's plenty of flavor, and I'm not sure I'd want more spices in that particular beer. I am curious, though...keep us posted.

You might want to back off on the spices. 7 tsp of spice in a 5 gallon batch seems very strong. Maybe try boiling some water and adding your spices to it to make a tea, then dose it in a keg.

Actually I cut way back on the spices from the above recipe.

Here is what I put in the secondary. If the beer needs more than I'll add it to the keg.
1 Tablespoon Pure Vanilla
1/2 Tablespoon Black Walnut extract
1/2 Tablespoon Cinnamon

Thanks for everyone's input. I'd put it in the Keg tonight but I'm too tired.

Tablespoons or teaspoons?

tablespoons.

Any thoughts???

McTarnamins said:

Any thoughts???

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Here's one: keg it, taste it, and let us know how it's turned out!

I put this in the keg today and it smells wonderful.....it really does have a lot of banana bread smell. I fermented this at a really high temp to bring out more banana esters from the Weihenstephaner yeast. If fermented down to 1.008. I drank the hydrometer sample and it could probably use a little more vanilla. The taste was really smooth. Mellow bitterness and warm malt profile.

I'll wait and see how it tastes carbonated and chilled. I can always add more spice in the keg.

If you want to try something different, try this recipe. I think it will be great for the holidays

Cheers.

Any updates? really currious about how it turned out

lolo1484 said:

Any updates? really currious about how it turned out

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+1. I'm really interested in trying this out. Did it have the banana taste from the weisenstaphan yeast despite having no wheat in the recipe?

I'm subscribing to this to see how it turns out. My next beer is going to be a chocolate peanut banana porter, I'm now thinking of maybe skipping on the bananas to use a heffe yeast with nottingham.

do any of you have any thoughts on adding bannanas to the secondary?