Banana Wine

Ok, here is our banana wine, 1 week after starting.

We We sliced the bananas up and boiled them in the water, mashing them as we went - hate using the bags!

We put the raisins in primary, along with a few generous scoops of the banana mush, before straining the hot banana liquid over it. It's been fermenting like that for a week.

Today, we juiced the raisins and banana mush from primary, added the juice back to the fermenting liquid, and racked it all over to a carboy. It's yeasty, but damn.. it tastes GOOD! So excited to try the final product!

Shouldn't that carboy be topped up, or is it still fermenting fairly actively?

It's fermenting like crazy - foam coming out of the top of the airlock and everything. When it calms down, we'll put it in a 5 gallon (6.5 now) carboy.

Sounds like you need a blow-off tube.

Honestly, headspace is something my husband and I argue about. Trust me, I pushed to transfer it to a 5 gallon when we realized that we didn't have as much liquid as we thought we would.

His view is that as long as it's fermenting, the head space will be too full of co2 for anything bad to happen. He's fine with WAY more headspace than I'm comfortable with, and we butted heads on this a few times yesterday.

I also don't see the point of taking up a 6.5 gallon carboy (our only one), when we have several 5 gallons available anyway.

Whatever. I'll be pushing to rack it to a 5 gallon in a week or so.

Still waiting for this to clear from my raisin addition. 2 months and counting. All up, it has been 7 months since primary fermentation. I haven't tasted it since the raisin addition though, will the fermentation that it underwent recently have made it harsh again?

Hi folks,

I started off one gallon and will be adding the raisins in mid June. The recipe sounds great and I cant wait to taste it. In the meantime I took a photo, its up on my site if you want to see( http://lotusmonkey.tumblr.com/ ). thanks for sharing.

just the photo link


regards

avi

You should link the photo directly.

No offense meant, but I don't feel like digging through your entire blog.

oldmate said:

will the fermentation that it underwent recently have made it harsh again?

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Depends on what you mean by harsh. It shouldn't reverse the smoothening of alcohol flavors, but it could re-introduce some byproducts. Even if it did, they will fade fairly quickly... it won't re-start the year you should wait for it to mellow properly.

Justibone said:

Depends on what you mean by harsh. It shouldn't reverse the smoothening of alcohol flavors, but it could re-introduce some byproducts. Even if it did, they will fade fairly quickly... it won't re-start the year you should wait for it to mellow properly.

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Thank god. I'm going to stabilise and rack onto some more honey/bananas and maybe a clearing agent, it still hasn't cleared yet (around 2-3 months after raisin addition). Interested to see how this is starting to taste, it has been around 8 months now.

..

Wow! The progression on this wine is unbelievable!

Going from the dishwater look to clarification wasn't gradual at all. It went from dishwater to clear with a thin layer of sediment in the course of less than a week!

Today is the one year anniversary of making my first batch of this banana wine. I stole a little sample of it from the fermenter today, and I must say this is some great tasting wine. It is still a little rocket fueley at this point but there is a definite banana flavor with some residual sweetness and like so many before me have said, it went from cloudy mop water to crystal clear in no time. The difference is astounding. After racking so many times there is no more sediment so I plan on bottling it soon. After it is bottled I can't wait to see how it tastes in another year!

Thanks for reporting back! We're out of this wine, and I keep thinking I'm going to start a new batch, but I just keep waiting for bananas to go on sale. Darn it- I should just buy the bananas and get started already, when I read these posts and remember how much we love this wine!

yooper said:

thanks for reporting back! We're out of this wine, and i keep thinking i'm going to start a new batch, but i just keep waiting for bananas to go on sale. Darn it- i should just buy the bananas and get started already, when i read these posts and remember how much we love this wine!

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+1

I foresee this in the close future!

So i read this entire thread yesterday, and I was inspired. . . Although i dont think it's technically a wine anymore, maybe something of a braggot? If anyone has an idea of what to call this feel free to let me know. . . Also this is my first post^^.

Pictures of the brewing day are in a link at the bottom

Ingredients

• 3.3lbs of Hefe-Extract (wheat!)
• ~20lbs of Banana
• 3lbs of Honey
• 3lbs of Raisins
• .5 gallon Apple Juice (the starter)
• 6oz Hopps (Local hops grown by a local homebrewer)
• EC-1118 (yaay)

Recipe
Boil 3 galons of water. Bring down the heat to below simmer. Mix in Hefe-Extract for a few minutes, then put the hopps in a bag and put them into the wort, turn the heat back up to a simmer. Leave hop-bag in for 15-20min, then throw it out, crash-cool the wort. Toss all that in the brewing bucket. Take bananas, toss into large pot on the stove, turn the heat WAY up, mash the **** out a the banana. I had to actually do this tree times, because i had so much banana. . which led to me having to much liquid in the primary, i had like 6.3 gallons in a 6.5 gallon bucket, in the future i'd make a 1.5-2gallon wort to compensate. Take the banana pure and pour on top of wort, then pitch yeast. The 3lbs of honey and 3lbs of raisins are going to go into the secondary.

I woke up this morning to a mess, because i tried to use a bubbler (I was tired!) so i cleaned up all the banana / krausen that was on the floor, and added a blowoff tube, hopy crap the thing is bubbling like mad!

Pictures!

I like the idea of a banana braggot. Were those hops fresh/ wet? Otherwise that seems like a lot of hops for something where I would want the banana and wheat to shine through.

Four, I don't understand what fermentables other than the banana are going to be in your primary? As soon as you add the honey in it will just take off again and might strip some taste of the bananas out?

P.s. I'm so happy I started this in Sept. last year, the floods in QLD have raised banana prices sky high, almost $14 a kg. I bought 7 kg for $14 almost this time last year

oldmate said:

Four, I don't understand what fermentables other than the banana are going to be in your primary? As soon as you add the honey in it will just take off again and might strip some taste of the bananas out?

P.s. I'm so happy I started this in Sept. last year, the floods in QLD have raised banana prices sky high, almost $14 a kg. I bought 7 kg for $14 almost this time last year

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3.3lbs of wheat extract. Honestly I meant to have the honey in there as well but it got to unmanageable. There is a loot of banana though, since I didn't just seep it, I left them all in

According to your instructions, Yooper, you don't top off with water immediately? Am I reading that correctly?

So I'm getting ready to start banana and reading the joy of home winemaking and terry's recipe doesn't call for raisins...jack Keller calls for concentrate... Anyone have experience playing with this? Does the banana offer enough to stand by itself? Thoughts?...I might try all three but it takes soo long!

We'll be bottling our banana wine this week.

We had to add more sugar than called for, but damn.. what a wine. TONS of banana flavor!

I'm going to make this tomorrow along with starting my annual Jamaican Banana Bread baking for Christmas. Unfortunately I couldn't find any "over-ripe" nanners. So I'm doing the "brown paper bag and apple trick on top of the fridge" trick and hoping they'll ripen overnight. I'll probably also hit a fruit market early and talk to the manager tomorrow to see if he's got any black ones off the floor.

I'm doing this because I have one bottle of my nephew's banana wine left for this year's breads. And since he's pretty much stopped making wine, if I wanna have any for subsequent breads it's up to me.....

Revvy said:

I'm going to make this tomorrow along with starting my annual Jamaican Banana Bread baking for Christmas. Unfortunately I couldn't find any "over-ripe" nanners. So I'm doing the "brown paper bag and apple trick on top of the fridge" trick and hoping they'll ripen overnight. I'll probably also hit a fruit market early and talk to the manager tomorrow to see if he's got any black ones off the floor.

I'm doing this because I have one bottle of my nephew's banana wine left for this year's breads. And since he's pretty much stopped making wine, if I wanna have any for subsequent breads it's up to me.....

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That banana bread you make is fantastic! I thought it was just wonderful. But talk about "homemade"- now you have to make the wine for it, too!

Yooper said:

That banana bread you make is fantastic! I thought it was just wonderful. But talk about "homemade"- now you have to make the wine for it, too!

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Yeah...If the bread is to continue either I have to find a substitute or make my own..So I figured go for it.

Can we get the bread recipe?

johnnync said:

Can we get the bread recipe?

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Have you looked for it??? It's been an active thread for the last couple days. Someone bumped it up and it's been one of the top threads in food and pairing...

Here.

Enjoy.

The link doesnt work.....for me atleast

And I cant find a "food and pairing" section............

Revvy said:

Have you looked for it???...

Here.

Enjoy.

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Link doesn't work.

Why the triple question marks? Take it easy chief.

johnnync said:

The link doesnt work.....for me atleast

And I cant find a "food and pairing" section............

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Not sure if you're just being a smartass, but assuming it's an honest question, the section is called "Cooking & Pairing".

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/revvys-jamaican-spiced-banana-rum-bread-92959/

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just surprised that people don't use the "new posts" button, it's been an almost constantly bumped thread for the last few days. Everytime I look it's pretty much there. And it's pretty much been the top thread in the cooking section as well. I'm just surprised what folks don't see on here, when it's right up there. That's all....

Thanks revvy

I wasnt being a smart ass.........I coulnt find it.

I keep finding things on this site I never knew was here.

Dammit. I misread the instructions. I had it in primary for a few days extra, waiting to pick up some raisins. Now I have then and find out that I should secondary them for 2 months first! LOL!

That's the way I roll.

The Wife and I put 5.5 gallons of this on today. It looks like muddy washwater, but it smells AMAZING. My whole house smells like banana bread after simmering almost 20 pounds of bananas on the stove! Can't wait...

...ugh, 1-2 years? This is the worst hobby for me, I have no patience!

My 1 gallon batch looks so amazing that I'm on the lookout for bananas on sale. Wife doesn't understand why I'd want to make more since I haven't even tasted the first batch yet...

Yooper how long did it take to clear?from Fermentation to Bottle?Was this on the dry side?

rseckler said:

Yooper how long did it take to clear?from Fermentation to Bottle?Was this on the dry side?

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I can't really remember exactly how long it took. I honestly don't pay much attention and bottle usually in the fall or winter most of the time.

It does finish dry, but you can stabilize it and sweeten it to taste if desired. I don't do many sweetened wines and my preference is a dry table wine.

I opened a bottle of my banana mead a couple weeks and it tasted like rotten bananas after nearly 2 years of aging

Maybe I let them get too ripe??

I'd love to try this recipe but I don't have golden raisins. I have regular raisins though, would it make a big difference if I used regular raisins instead?

The dark raisins will give it a brown color