Fast Banana Wine

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Leadgolem

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Notice: I'm going to be running a new version of this wine within the next couple of months. I believe the new approach I am planning will totally wipe the floor with the recipe below, so you might want to wait a little bit while I get things put together.

I've been looking at banana wine recipes. To frank, I'm just not willing to wait two years for it to mature. So, I thought I'd put together something similar with a few changes I'm hoping will shorten the aging time it needs. This is a little bit of a cider approach as opposed to a more classic wine approach.

This recipe is designed to be made in a fermenting bucket.

Fast Banana Wine
Batch size: 5 gallons
OG: 1.100
FG: 1.000
ABV: 13.3%

Estimated time to maturity: 6 months

10 lbs of bananas. (18-20 bananas, usually. Slightly overripe is preferable.)
1 tbs pectin enzyme
2 tbs citric acid powder (You could use acid blend, or even a 1/2 cup of lemon juice if you prefer. I just have this on hand all the time.)
Water to a total volume of 5 gallons
Sugar to a gravity of 1.100, about 9 lbs
1 tbs and 3/4 tsp bentonite powder
1 gallon pasteur champagne starter
About 1lb of sugar
5 grams of dried pasteur champagne yeast (1 packet)
2 tbs and 2 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tbs and 1 tsp yeast energizer​
Spice blend
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground gloves​

A couple of days before you plan on brewing: Make your starter. Mix water and table sugar to gravity of 1.020 to a volume of 1 gallon. Add all of the yeast nutrient and yeast energizer to it. Add 1 5 gram packet of dried pasteur champagne yeast to it. It's best to use something that has a lid you can seal so you can shake this up periodically. Do not install an airlock, cover with aluminum foil. We want oxygen to get in.

Add citric acid and about 1 gallon of water to a non-reactive pot. Stir until dissolved. Peal and slice bananas, adding immediately to the pot of water as each batch is sliced.

Heat the pot on medium until it comes to a bare simmer. While the pot is heating, add your spice blend and mix until it's completely integrated. Turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Add about 6lbs of sugar to your fermenting bucket. Pour the hot banana mix onto it. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add cold water to about 3 gallons total volume. Cool to pitch temperatures. This is a good time to use a wort chiller if you have one. Using ice instead of cold water also works well. Add pectin enzyme. Add your starter. Add sugar and additional water until you reach your desired gravity and 5 gallon volume.

After about 3 weeks in primary: Take gravity readings over three successive days to verify the batch has finished fermenting. If it hasn't, you will want to wait until it has to proceed further. Mix bentonite powder with about 8 oz of the must in a resealable container. Shake periodically until all the lumps are broken up. transfer off of the lees into secondary. You may need to fish out floating banana pieces with a slotted spoon. Mix bentonite slurry with the batch.

After another two weeks in secondary: The batch could be bottled at this point. However, I would recommend aging to the full six months in bulk if feasible.

At bottling time: Taste the wine. Did I really have to tell you to do that? Decide if you wish to back sweeten, or add additional acid at this point. If you decide to back sweeten, I would recommend pasteurizing the bottles.

When you wake up the next morning hung over and smelling of banana bread: Drink more, and start baking. :D I am not responsible for your inability to stop drinking this delicious stuff, or any injuries or marriages that may result from your drunken behavior.

If you are familiar with banana wine you probably noticed the omission of the tannin. Tannin produces some wonderful complexity, but it also takes years to do so. The spices should lend the wine a needed level of complexity, without taking the kind of time tannin needs. It won't, of course, be the same flavor.

The second thing that stands out is the high level of nutrients. I don't know what exactly the yeast are getting out of the bananas. Therefore, I estimated the nutrient additions based on a nutrient devoid sugar solution and the desired ABV. With these nutrient levels we shouldn't have any undesirable fermentation by-products from nutrient deficiencies. That means we shouldn't have to wait for them to age out.

This recipe also leaves the banana solids in for a lot longer. The idea being to extract as many of the flavor from them as possible. Hopefully that will result in a stronger banana flavor, and make the aging until apparent alcohol flavor has disappeared less important.

I also intend to leave banana solids in each bottle, to be stirred back into suspension just before the wine is served. That should bump the banana flavor, and improve the mouth feel. It will also make the wine look bad, though I'm not sure exactly what it will look like at this point. I believe the acid solution was successful in breaking down the oxidizing enzyme in the bananas, though only time will tell.

Actually specifying a starter in a recipe is a little odd. The other option would be to pitch 16 grams of dried yeast. That seems a bit excessive to me, hence the starter.


The first batch made this way went into my fermentor about an hour ago.

Comments, questions, any personal experiences you would like to share with something similar, they are all welcome.

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More pictures. I realized I hadn't allowed for any head space in my fermenting bucket. Oops. So 6 quarts of this batch has been split into the smaller fermenting bucket. It will get oak chips in secondary. That will make it take longer to mature, but it should be interesting.

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I think you will find those bananas are going to turn to mush soon, no chance of retrieval with spoon a few weeks from now. Any chance you could contain them in a straining bag? You didn't include any of the peels as your made the 'soup', they are a huge component to flavor plus those peels have an enzyme which will make this clear so much sooner (perhaps for next batch)?

Other concerns/questions:
-3 weeks in a primary without airlock?
-Why wait three weeks to add bentonite, it will do wonders when added preferment?
-16 grams of yeast for 5 gallons, why so much?
-any plans for vanilla/vanilla bean once at F.G.?

Regardless, I think this looks great and I am sure it smells awesome.
 
The aging isn't because of the bananas, really. It's because of the high OG. With an OG of 1.100, this isn't going to be a quick wine.

Cutting the amount of bananas and adding more sugar means it will probably take longer, not less time, to age into something drinkable I'm afraid. Simple sugars get really "hot" and it will ferment easily to .990 so it's be a very rocket fuel wine for the first year or two.

I use 3.5 pounds of bananas per gallon, which gives a banana flavor but not an overwhelming flavor. I also use the skins. I would use 17.5 pounds of bananas in a 5 gallon batch. By reducing the bananas to almost in half, you'll lose a ton of the banana flavor, and not using the peels means even less flavor. I also use raisins- which gives fullness and body.

By using less bananas, more simple sugar, and a higher OG, this wine will be thin, hot, and lacking banana flavor.

Three weeks in primary may mean oxidation, so I'd rack once fermentation slowed and not keep it in primary after it's done.
 
I think you will find those bananas are going to turn to mush soon, no chance of retrieval with spoon a few weeks from now. Any chance you could contain them in a straining bag? You didn't include any of the peels as your made the 'soup', they are a huge component to flavor plus those peels have an enzyme which will make this clear so much sooner (perhaps for next batch)?

Other concerns/questions:
-3 weeks in a primary without airlock?
-Why wait three weeks to add bentonite, it will do wonders when added preferment?
-16 grams of yeast for 5 gallons, why so much?
-any plans for vanilla/vanilla bean once at F.G.?

Regardless, I think this looks great and I am sure it smells awesome.
You are probably right about the bananas liquefying. We will see in a few weeks. I do not own a straining bag. I'll have to do some reading on the enzymes, I was not aware of that. I wanted to exclude then as the bitter flavors in the peel says "age me" to my taste buds.

3 weeks in primary with an airlock. Really, once it's hit FG it should be transferred. No matter if that's 3 weeks or 5 days.

I'm wanting a fair number of the solids to drop before adding the bentonite. If they haven't, then it would likely require so much bentonite to reduce the level of solids in the wine you would end up with something with a metalic flavor. I consider 1tsp/gallon to be an absolute max on bentonite without negatively impacting the flavor.

The high pitch rate is a direct result of the high gravity. Yeast stress=compounds that need to age.

I'd love to try some vanilla beans in secondary. I don't want to go to the expense to do that in any large quantity until I've got a base recipe I'm completely happy with though. This is the first running here.

The aging isn't because of the bananas, really. It's because of the high OG. With an OG of 1.100, this isn't going to be a quick wine.

Cutting the amount of bananas and adding more sugar means it will probably take longer, not less time, to age into something drinkable I'm afraid. Simple sugars get really "hot" and it will ferment easily to .990 so it's be a very rocket fuel wine for the first year or two.

I use 3.5 pounds of bananas per gallon, which gives a banana flavor but not an overwhelming flavor. I also use the skins. I would use 17.5 pounds of bananas in a 5 gallon batch. By reducing the bananas to almost in half, you'll lose a ton of the banana flavor, and not using the peels means even less flavor. I also use raisins- which gives fullness and body.

By using less bananas, more simple sugar, and a higher OG, this wine will be thin, hot, and lacking banana flavor.

Three weeks in primary may mean oxidation, so I'd rack once fermentation slowed and not keep it in primary after it's done.
I do not agree. I've done several ciders and various fruit based wines with gravities right around the 1.100 mark. In fact, they were done almost exactly this way. Fruit base, either actual fruit or juice, with added table sugar. The ones that need to age more then six months had one or more of the following conditions;
1. To low of a pitch rat.
2. Nutrient shortfall during fermentation. (IE: They went stinky.)
3. High fermentation temperatures.

I do not have temperature control equipment. So, I covered the pitch rate and the nutrients.



I reread my original post and realized I failed to include a fairly important piece of information. I intend to leave banana solids in the bottles. The idea being to stir them into suspension before drinking. I believe that will increase the level of banana flavor rather dramatically. It should also improve the mouth feel.

I got the idea after tasting some rice wine that I had cleared, and finding it inferior to a sample from the same batch with suspended rice solids in it.


Thank you for your feedback. Anything else anyone would like to share, post it up. :ban:
 
I was a bad boy. I snitched a sample from the smaller batch of banana wine. At this point, it's clearly not finished. It's also fantastic!! The banana aroma is a little less then I was expecting. The flavor is wonderful. Mildly sweet. Truly excellent mouth feel. Flavor complexity is nice as well. The new alcohol aroma and flavor is covering some of it I'm sure, but WOW! The appearance is better then expected too. The citric acid solution did deactivate the oxidizing enzyme. I've got white, yellow, and light tan particulate matter suspended in a clear liquid.

I had intended to allow this to ferment dry, then back sweeten and bottle pasteurize. However, with the quality of this wine now I'm not willing to risk the whole batch through to FG. I'll probably bottle and pasteurize the main part of the batch this weekend. The small batch I'll let got to FG, then probably split again and oak 1/2 of that.

Just in case I wasn't clear. This stuff is awesome!

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I reread my original post and realized I failed to include a fairly important piece of information. I intend to leave banana solids in the bottles. The idea being to stir them into suspension before drinking. I believe that will increase the level of banana flavor rather dramatically. It should also improve the mouth feel.

I got the idea after tasting some rice wine that I had cleared, and finding it inferior to a sample from the same batch with suspended rice solids in it.


Thank you for your feedback. Anything else anyone would like to share, post it up. :ban:

Your looking for a banana wine cooler like drink.
Usually one does not stir solids back into a cleared wine for flavor...Just get some banana liquor

Rice wine is made from fermenting rice its not flavored with it, trust me if you leave that much sediment in your wine its going to taste horrible as the banana ages and decays in the bottle.

On the other hand if you served your wine in a goblet with a wedge of banana or put a couple thin slices of FRESH banana at serving i guess you can get away with that..

Lets face it no one wants to drink a dirty, turbid wine. Appearence is everything.

Cheers.
 
Your looking for a banana wine cooler like drink.
Usually one does not stir solids back into a cleared wine for flavor...Just get some banana liquor

Rice wine is made from fermenting rice its not flavored with it, trust me if you leave that much sediment in your wine its going to taste horrible as the banana ages and decays in the bottle.

On the other hand if you served your wine in a goblet with a wedge of banana or put a couple thin slices of FRESH banana at serving i guess you can get away with that..

Lets face it no one wants to drink a dirty, turbid wine. Appearence is everything.

Cheers.
I have made rice wine a few times. In actuality the rice does contributes to the mouth feel, flavor, and aroma of the wine very directly. Both in straight up rice wine, and red rice wine. The suspended rice particles represent partially saccharified starch. IE: Things that taste sweet, but are not fermentable in there present state.

I am not making banana liqueur. In rice wine you do, in fact, stir solids back in very deliberately. Whether this approach proves desirable with bananas remains to be seen.

I'm racking into my bottling bucket as I type this. Here is how things look with the floating banana solids removed.

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I was a bad boy. I snitched a sample from the smaller batch of banana wine. At this point, it's clearly not finished. It's also fantastic!! ...

What is the SG at for the portion you plan on bottling soon? Will be interesting to see how the solids come into play with this in the bottle, since you are experimenting after all. We did learn we love our rice solids, didn't we? You should try this blended with some of your rice wine.
 
Your looking for a banana wine cooler like drink.
Usually one does not stir solids back into a cleared wine for flavor...Just get some banana liquor

Rice wine is made from fermenting rice its not flavored with it, trust me if you leave that much sediment in your wine its going to taste horrible as the banana ages and decays in the bottle.

On the other hand if you served your wine in a goblet with a wedge of banana or put a couple thin slices of FRESH banana at serving i guess you can get away with that..

Lets face it no one wants to drink a dirty, turbid wine. Appearence is everything.

Cheers.

I very much want to drink a turbid wine, thank you kindly. Appearance is the result of a process, not the driver. Form as a result of function.

Your premise may be based on a faulty assumption.
The rice (in this case banana) "solids" are in suspension. Like pectin or other nonfermentable micro's. It's not like the OP is stirring in banana puree before bottling, these are leftovers from the fermentation process.

You don't filter a deep red to 1micron, because it strips the flavor. Same deal here, but with bigger particles. It's part of the style that Gollem is trying to hit.
 
What is the SG at for the portion you plan on bottling soon? Will be interesting to see how the solids come into play with this in the bottle, since you are experimenting after all. We did learn we love our rice solids, didn't we? You should try this blended with some of your rice wine.
1.030, that's very sweet but I think it suites the bananas well.

I had considered blending with some rice wine, but I'm thinking you would have to use a fairly small proportion of banana wine to rice wine. Otherwise you are likely to overpower the subtleties of the rice wine. It might blend better with red rice wine, given that red rice wine has a stronger fruity flavor to it.
I very much want to drink a turbid wine, thank you kindly. Appearance is the result of a process, not the driver. Form as a result of function.

Your premise may be based on a faulty assumption.
The rice (in this case banana) "solids" are in suspension. Like pectin or other nonfermentable micro's. It's not like the OP is stirring in banana puree before bottling, these are leftovers from the fermentation process.

You don't filter a deep red to 1micron, because it strips the flavor. Same deal here, but with bigger particles. It's part of the style that Gollem is trying to hit.
I'm glad somebody go it. :) Cloudy brew isn't necessarily bad brew. The suspended solids can bring a lot of flavor to the party.

Here is a picture of the banana wine alongside a bottle of really good red rice wine. I've found, with rice wine, that getting the proportion of solids to liquid in the wine is actually very important to the quality of the wine. The eyeball methods says these should be pretty close to the same, though the desirable proportion is currently unknown for the banana wine.

I expected this batch to take another 2-3 weeks at the least, so I only had one empty wine bottle. I'll be using that as my "witness" bottle, so I can see how the appearance changes. The rest is bottled in 22 oz amber crown cap bottles.

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I have made rice wine a few times. In actuality the rice does contributes to the mouth feel, flavor, and aroma of the wine very directly. Both in straight up rice wine, and red rice wine. The suspended rice particles represent partially saccharified starch. IE: Things that taste sweet, but are not fermentable in there present state.

I mentioned "solids" as in large material like half-inch sized banana pieces. This i assume we can agree on not being so "beneficial" to taste, specially on your next statement you point out removing them...

I am not making banana liqueur. In rice wine you do, in fact, stir solids back in very deliberately. Whether this approach proves desirable with bananas remains to be seen.

You say your not making rice wine but make refrence to it as though its the correct approach for banana wine. You also stir in solids with rice wine during fermentation to ensure a proper surface cover of all available starch to yeast correct? So in what way does this relate to rice wine where also 100% of your fermentable sugars are coming from plain cane sugar and not converted starchs??
All im trying to say is, solids are not a desirable trait to any beer/wine and IMO will only cause off flavors as time goes on, on the other hand not worrying about clarity/haze is a completly differnt story.


I'm racking into my bottling bucket as I type this. Here is how things look with the floating banana solids removed.
^^

I very much want to drink a turbid wine, thank you kindly. Appearance is the result of a process, not the driver. Form as a result of function.
Im sorry but this is ignorant. You might like to drink it but the secound you pour a glass for someone else and it comes out like chunky milk, im sure youll have a hard time dealing with them politely turning it down regardless how amazing it smelt/tasted.

Your premise may be based on a faulty assumption.
The rice (in this case banana) "solids" are in suspension. Like pectin or other nonfermentable micro's. It's not like the OP is stirring in banana puree before bottling, these are leftovers from the fermentation process.
Like i stated above i meant "solids" as in LARGE chunks of banana, if this an arguement over pectin haze then i must have stating my wording wrong.

You don't filter a deep red to 1micron, because it strips the flavor. Same deal here, but with bigger particles. It's part of the style that Gollem is trying to hit.

Ahh yes this confirms were talking about "particles" not "solids"


Carry on!! Misunderstanding...
 
I mentioned "solids" as in large material like half-inch sized banana pieces. This i assume we can agree on not being so "beneficial" to taste, specially on your next statement you point out removing them...
Ah, that would make more sense then. In my mind turbid just means hazy, not floating chunks. I was talking about leaving some particulate matter in the bottles to be stirred back into suspension.

You say your not making rice wine but make refrence to it as though its the correct approach for banana wine.
I said I was not making banana liqueur. I am using some of the things I learned making rice wine in making this banana wine. Whether or not this approach is appropriate to bananas is currently unknown.

You also stir in solids with rice wine during fermentation to ensure a proper surface cover of all available starch to yeast correct?
It depends on the style of rice wine. With sake, yes. With many other kinds of rice wine, no. However, many kinds of rice wine do have particulate matter in the bottle that is supposed to be stirred back in before serving. In fact, I believe the majority of them do.

So in what way does this relate to rice wine where also 100% of your fermentable sugars are coming from plain cane sugar and not converted starchs??
This question is rather confusing. I believe you wish to know why I would use a rice wine approach in leaving suspended particles in the wine for banana wine, when the fermentables are entirely different? If that is the case, then the answer is that I'm looking for a high banana flavor index from a moderate fruit addition. My experience making rice wine presented suspended particulates as a possible source of those flavor compounds.

All im trying to say is, solids are not a desirable trait to any beer/wine and IMO will only cause off flavors as time goes on, on the other hand not worrying about clarity/haze is a completly differnt story.
We will have to see what changes time makes with the banana particulates left in the bottle. I believe I was able to deactivate the oxidizing enzyme in the bananas with the acid solution, otherwise I think the wine would have darkened considerably already. When I pasteurized this wine it was brought up to 160f for 10 minutes. That should kill off the yeast rather efficiently, and deactivate many of the enzymes present.

...Carry on!! Misunderstanding...
Yup. I don't think anyone has any desire to drink sludge.

As always, have nice day.:mug:
 
I meant to do this yesterday, but I'm remodeling my bathroom and it slipped my mind. Here is a picture of the banana wine I left to ferment dry. It's now at 0.992. I'm going to call that FG, if it goes much lower I won't be able to read it at all. The actual gravity of this batch was 1.105, so it's hit 15.1% abv.

Surprising, it's still got a good amount of banana flavor. Excellent mouth feel. Really, just the right viscosity. It's thick enough to allow your taste buds to register the flavor compounds, but not in the least bit sludgy. It is also interesting in that it doesn't taste like a dry wine. With a gravity that low I rather doubt it contains any sugar at this point. It tastes very much like it does though. It reminds you so strongly of something sweet that, even though it isn't, your mind tells you it is anyway.

At this point it's also clearly far to young. The alcohol flavor is still very strong. Though, oddly, the aroma is of bananas with just the barest hint of alcohol. I will be very interested in how this ages. It's pleasant now, I wonder how it will be in a few months. :)

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I went ahead and bottled the dry banana wine. I don't have a bottling bucket that is the right size for these two gallon fermenting buckets, so it was funnel and pour from the bucket. When I was doing that, I was getting far to much trub in the bottles. So, I ran the whole thing through coffee filters. The attached picture is an example. There was a reduction in the flavor, and a change in mouth feel. The result is a wine that is a bit thin for my tastes, though still in acceptable ranges. Still pleasantly banana flavored, but the aroma also dropped somewhat.

On balance, I'd say filtering was better then the amount of trub loss I was looking at. In a larger batch I wouldn't though. I would rack and use a bottling bucket that's the right size.

Before filtering I pulled 2 quarts and have that in a bottle with about 1/8th of an ounce of light toast oak chips. I don't have a scale that is accurate in that weight range, so I had to estimate based on subdividing the volume of the 4 oz package.

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Looks awesome. I save money on oak chips by buying white oak "pen blanks" on ebay, about ten bucks a dozen, the screwdrivers just for scale. You can toast them in the oven or char them on your grill.

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Looks awesome. I save money on oak chips by buying white oak "pen blanks" on ebay, about ten bucks a dozen, the screwdrivers just for scale. You can toast them in the oven or char them on your grill.
That's a good idea. It wouldn't exactly be a lot of work to cut them into blocks.

I've actually been kicking around with the idea of using other kinds of toasted wood in secondary. There is a fair selection of wood chips designed to go into a smoker I could try...
 
Make sure yer prepared to use the lees from the primary from your banana wine to use for a batch of Skeeter Pee. Ahhhh, it's summer.
(Lon's original recipe uses the lees from a different batch of wine to supply the yeast colony for the lemon wine. Banana works great.)
 
I wouldn't use the actual lees from this recipe. There is a fair amount of glop in the bottom from the bananas. Under that there is a very clear layer of yeast I did harvest.
 
I opened a bottle of the sweet banana wine, in the name of.. uh... science. Yeah. I did not stir it so I could sample it clear first.

Although it is clear there is sediment in the bottle, the first pouring was crystal clear. The flavor was nice, a fairly solid banana flavor. Still a bit much alcohol flavor and aroma, as expected.

After tasting I poured the rest of the glass back in the bottle and mixed the sediment back in. The second pour was, of course, very cloudy. Still a nice sold banana flavor, more apparent sweetness. A much more...hmmm. Rounded flavor I would have to say. I much preferred the second pour to the first, it also has a nicer mouth feel. Still to much alcohol flavor, though it was less apparent after mixing things up.

Good stuff either way, it needs some more time though.

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I sampled the dry wine that is on the oak chips. It is the same color as the first sample from above. The banana aroma is lower then I was hoping, though present. The flavor was pretty much identical to the first sample from above, only not so sweet. There is a tiny amount of tannic bite at this point. I'm going to leave it on the oak chips for another week at least.
 
The oaked portion of the batch now has a nice mild tannic bite to it. I'm pulling it off the oak chips and bottling now. It was crystal clear. I'm running it through coffee filters because of the small volume of the batch, so It's being bottled cloudy. I expect that to settle out fairly quickly in the bottle.

The alcohol flavor has mellowed more then I had expected considering the short amount of time involved. That's a good sign for the rest of the batch. :)
 
I just sampled some of the dry banana wine, not the oaked this time. The appearance is the same as the first sample from above. I was slightly surprised to find that the sediment had compacted so tightly in the bottom of the bottle that it did not come out. Even after swished the second half of the bottle around before pouring. The dry wine was bottled with far less particulate content then the sweet though.

It has a definite banana flavor and aroma. The alcohol flavor and aroma is almost gone. At a guess, this will be fully mature at 6 months. At just under 3 months, it's definitely drinkable. It's got that, this isn't sweet but your taste buds think it should be, effect to it. It's a little like very good, but dry, hard apple cider in that way. The flavor of the spices in the overall profile is a little lower then I expected. Next time I think I would increase them by about 20%. They are adding complexity, but it's a bit to subtle for me.

Happy brewing everybody!:mug:
 
Has anyone ever made this without cooking the bananas first? I have 10 pounds of frozen bananas in the freezer and am wondering why I cannot just thaw them in strainer bags and then proceed with the recipe.

Any thoughts?
 
Has anyone ever made this without cooking the bananas first? I have 10 pounds of frozen bananas in the freezer and am wondering why I cannot just thaw them in strainer bags and then proceed with the recipe.

Any thoughts?
Hmm, it sounds yummy. :) I'd be a little concerned that you wouldn't get as much of the banana flavor out of the fruit.

If you decide to do this, please let us know how things go.
 
I sampled the dry banana wine today.

The point about bottling with lots of particulates was correct in so much as it's detrimental to the presentation. The banana did finally oxidize and turn brown. That makes it look like a glass of diarrhea. I'll clear before bottling in the future.

After six months the hot alcohol has aged out. It's got very little apparent alcohol. It does have that, reminds you of something sweet, flavor. Though it came out overly dry for my tastes. The banana flavor is also weaker then I would like. Not by a great deal, but it could use more of a banana punch. Next time I'll increase the proportion of banana flesh to liquid volume. With the particulates in it it is better, more rounded flavor. Much more banana flavor. The awfulness of the presentation really kills the idea of leaving them in though.

I think I'll treat this the way I usually do my cider. I'll bottle dry, and keep a bottle of simple syrup on hand to sweeten to taste. No real need to run two versions.

The spice addition turned out to be spot on after six months. Without the particulates to mask them, the spices are really just perfectly balanced.
 
I like the premise!
I am going to try this approach with the leftover Banana/ golden raisin sediments after 1st rack..
any one ever reuse the leftover. think its a light table wine style?
def on teh spiced & oaks chips!!
any remarks appreciated.
 
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