Yooper's banana wine & yeast question

Hi guys! Since I've got ~20kg of ripe bananas for free, I thought with my brew-friend to give a shot to Yooper's banana wine. We are planning to do a 50lt batch [around 10 gal] but we only have a package of 5g Lalvin EC-1118.
Obviously I don't think that it will be sufficient to pitch, but since we bought it online, from the uk, and it took three weeks to arrive, we were thinking of a way to reproduce the yeasts, like rehydratate it and the make a starter... Good idea or bad idea? I've read something on here, but it just confused me a lot... And if we can make the starter, what should we put in it? Some light DME? Thanks in advance to whoever knows more than us

Salute! I haven't done it, but if you make a pretty large starter, maybe 4 liters, get it going good and strong and then pitch it then it should work, that ec1118 is "violento".

It's preferable to use the same must you will be fermenting for the starter, so mix up your banana goop and water and pitch the yeast to it, wait till its going strong then toss it in your big batch after you aerate the "inferno" out of it.

Ciao! In Bocca al lupo!
( my Italian is nearly exhausted now)

The thing you are looking to do with a starter is to build a stong yeast colony by introducing them to an environment that is easy for them to live in. Here is the recipe I use for my 5 gal meads/wines just doubled up for you.

1 liter water
1/4 liter honey
1/2 tsp yeast nutrients like DAP
20 fine chopped raisins

Just sprinkle the yeast on top and cover with a paper towel. 8 hours later pitch the yeast and all will be just fine.

Arpolis said:

The thing you are looking to do with a starter is to build a stong yeast colony....

Click to expand...

Thank you very much, we are going to try it, I'll keep you all update