Banana Beer?

Hey anyone ever make the traditional African/Asian banana beer? The preparation is really easy and quick. It apparently only ferments for a day or two and consists of bananas, toasted grain and water.

I've got something similar going with bananas, toasted oats, white sugar and a bit of whole grain bread. It smells real good.

Pitched yeast tonight from a wild batch I have.

They make this in all the Asian countries, the islands and anywhere bananas grow. It should be a neat experience.

It is supposed to ferment for 1-2 days then its strained and consumed sweet.

In the mood to try something new...

Cheers

I'm curious... Let me know how it turns out.

Will do, right now it tastes like some awesome health food smoothie.

I was inspired to try this by a book on Vietnam that talked about the villagers making it....it is supposed to be weak, low in alcohol and sweet. Apparently the villagers found a market for this stuff in the American troops during the war. We'll see what happens

sounds nice
think you could post the recipe/measurements?
would make a nice last batch before i go back to uni

Well I don't use recipies or measure ingredients, I just eyeball it.
Something like...

bananas

water

oats

whole grain wheat bread

white sugar

lemon juice

raisins

yeast

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Boil your bananas in water and mash em until they turn to mush, turn off heat

Add a tablespoon or two of raisins, squirt of lemon juice and two slices of whole grain bread, stir

In another pan, toast about a 1/2 cup of dry plain oats, add them to the mix

Add water to make a gallon and sugar until it is pretty sweet, not candy though

I like to cool mine in the sun for an hour or so to get a nice even warm temperature.

Pitch yeast

Next morning you should have some bubbling and by the end of the next day it should be going mad.

Traditionally this is only fermented for a day or two but this varies among cultures widely. It is a pretty common drink in Asia, Africa and the islands.

It is described as a "hazy beverage made from the small local bananas and toasted grains, low in alcohol and sweet"

Online texts desribe Africans digging a pit which they use to ripen green bananas, after a week they are ripe enough to use. They are squeezed, mixed with roasted sorghum and water then fermented 24 hours. After this it is bottled and drank. This is only one of the many ways the drink is made.

I am about 12 hrs from pitching yeast (I used a wild strain that quickly goes mad) it is beginning to bubble steadily and there is a good inch of foam at the top. Smells strongly of banana bread with hints of vanilla and nuts. Lovely. I'll try a glass after the recomended 24 hour fermentation.

cheers might have to give it a go

ive got some banana wine aging at the moment but im not hopeful for it
when i tried it a few weeks ago it tastes way to sour and watery

damn, the idea of it sounds tasty! Might have to try this.

Too bad about the banana wine TBag. My condolences...

Just stuck my nose in this banana beer and it already has a faint aroma of alcohol. The kitchen where my jugs are smells like I've been baking. My fingers are crossed..

Alright, it is now bubbling somewhat vigorously. The gasses are pushing the floating oats/bread/banana peices up through the top and into the air lock balloon.

ScottConklin said:

Alright, it is now bubbling somewhat vigorously. The gasses are pushing the floating oats/bread/banana peices up through the top and into the air lock balloon.

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oh so you just put all the mulch in? no kind of filtering?

TBag said:

oh so you just put all the mulch in? no kind of filtering?

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No sir, the cheesecloth will come later. I like the idea of all the plant material adding its flavors and whatnot.

I reckon the tribesman don't worry over it it all that much. I read they use banana leaves to get the goo out

Right now it has seperated into three sections, floating goo, sinking goo and hazy bubbling liquid.

Tommorow afternoon it will have been fermenting solidly for 24 hrs, which is the traditional time for bottling/drinking. Doesn't sound like enough time to me but it is supposed to be sweet and low in alcohol.

Still smells like banana bread.

Alright, this morning it is bubbling like mad! One of the most violent fermentations I have ever seen....will taste this afternoon...

hmmm i'l probably want mine to ferment for a bit longer and be less sweet
suppose i could rack it off the sludge after a few days
just worried about things beginning to rot

Yeah its a weird beverage, you drink it "live" while the yeast is still active and it is only mildly alcoholic. A lot of folks around here drink cider "live", during all stages of fermentation so it isn't that unusual I guess.

I'll be straining it through cheesecloth and a fine strainer today. I actually make a lot of wine with all the fruit pieces intact during early fermentation and I've never had one go bad. Stuff like raisins and apples will just kind of dissolve and settle with the yeast cake at the bottom.

hmm id probably have to let it ferment out, id like to bottle it
any idea how well it ages? im all for drinking it live but itd be nice to have a few bottles put away for friends and the like.

and as for leaving fruit peices in primary, dthink they add extra flavour?
thanks for all the info btw

Well after a few weeks it would turn to wine. I've never made it but from what I gather banana wine can be either delicious or terrible, depending on how well it is made. It needs to age or it can be harsh.

Peices of fruit/grains in the primary will definitely change the flavor, I'm all for it! You get the entire fruit fermenting, not simply its juice. A lot of wineries put the entire grapes in the vat to ferment.

No problem, as you can see I am new to this forum as well.

Ok, I found a site from Rwanda that says they ferment it for 3 days in a hand dug pit. So depending on the locale, they ferment anywhere from 24 hrs to several days.

I can't find much on the Asian banana beer, I know the variety of banana/cereal is different but I wonder if the process is the same

It seems that the Vietnamese variety is fermented longer, more like a wine..

This is a fascinating thread to stumble into. The Arawak Indians of the Caribbean made banana beer too, and the 17th century buccaneers who sampled it found it 'very light and nourishing.' Their method was simply to mash up the bananas and put them in a hide bag with some water and honey for the better part of a week. Then they'd dig the sludge out of the bottom, make it into little sun-dried cakes, and pound it up for flour so you could have banana bread to go with your banana beer. Waste not, etc.

Up until this moment I had no idea people all over the *world* were making the stuff. Please keep us posted. Inquiring minds want to know. So do historical reenactors...

I just sampled it at 24 hrs fermenting and it is interesting indeed. Difficult to explain, like a sour apple crossed with banana, highly palatable at this point. Sticky and sweet. The alcohol content is so low that it hardly registers as a beer.

It was thick and syrup-like so I added some sugar water to even it out. I will allow two more days of fermentation and taste again..as of now it seems that it will be a winner..

I'll taste again today at 48 hrs, the fermentation has slowed a great deal...

PhilOssiferzStone said:

This is a fascinating thread to stumble into. The Arawak Indians of the Caribbean made banana beer too, and the 17th century buccaneers who sampled it found it 'very light and nourishing.' Their method was simply to mash up the bananas and put them in a hide bag with some water and honey for the better part of a week. Then they'd dig the sludge out of the bottom, make it into little sun-dried cakes, and pound it up for flour so you could have banana bread to go with your banana beer. Waste not, etc.

Up until this moment I had no idea people all over the *world* were making the stuff. Please keep us posted. Inquiring minds want to know. So do historical reenactors...

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Awesome, I love it that there are others interested in the alcoholic drinks of indigenous peoples. I find this entire area fascinating, the rituals, tradition and whatnot.

Alright I just tried a bit.

It starts with a cool sourness and ends with a light essence of banana bread.

"very light and nourishing" is as good a description as I can give. There are no strong flavors just a tartness like a Granny Smith apple and the aroma/aftertaste of baked banana bread.

The alcohol content today is maybe 1-2%, it is certainly alcoholic but it is just barely noticable.

It is effervescent and very refreshing. It went marvelously with a bowl of shrimp gumbo. The thick sweet/sour perfectly complimented the boiled shrimp and sticky okra. Leaves your mouth with a cool, clean sort of feeling.

Fantastic, I'm tempted to have another.

I am going to bottle and refrigerate some as it is today and allow the rest to go another day. I'll check back in tommorow.

I just bottled an experimental batch of Banana Beer - pretty quirky as I did not use any bittering ingredients. I had heard that the fermentation process took the banana aroma and flavor away, which did not happen. My end result smells faintly like bananas, but has a strong and heavy cooked-like banana taste (the heavier sweeter elements of the banana). I'm not exactly loving drinking it, as it is a bit heavy, but hey I'll see what happens when it carbs up a bit and gets cold.

This is my recipe.

I used a hand blender to combine about eight pounds of bananas (peeled) with about a gallon of water. I added one half pound 6-row and a teaspoon of powdered amylase enzyme. I mashed this at 150F for 90 minutes, then added about 1.25 pounds of honey and brought it to a boil. I used a strainer to separate about 2 gallons of wort from the blend and brought it to 205F. I cooled the wort to about 120F, added pectic enzyme, and let it cool further to 85F when I pitched my yeast (I used Saftbrew T-58). The OG was 1.060. After about a week in primary (it fermented violently) and 10 days in secondary, the SG/FG was 1.00. In about a month I'll taste the carbed/cold product and let you all know what its like.

One more thought, it fermented in my basement at about 70F, and I used T-58 to try to match some of the expected sweetness with a bit of pepper/spice. But that did not happen.

How did this turn out?

ScottConklin said:

Will do, right now it tastes like some awesome health

ScottConklin said:

Hey anyone ever make the traditional African/Asian banana beer? The preparation is really easy and quick. It apparently only ferments for a day or two and consists of bananas, toasted grain and water.

I've got something similar going with bananas, toasted oats, white sugar and a bit of whole grain bread. It smells real good.

Pitched yeast tonight from a wild batch I have.

They make this in all the Asian countries, the islands and anywhere bananas grow. It should be a neat experience.

It is supposed to ferment for 1-2 days then its strained and consumed sweet.

In the mood to try something new...

Cheers

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Hi Scott,

My dad is a Vietnam war Veteran and often talks about having banana beer while in Vietnam. I’m curious- in the course of your reading about this, did you come across the Vietnamese word for “banana beer?” My dad always called it “ban me bah” but I have a feeling that’s not how it’s spelled!

beckster205 said:

Hi Scott,

My dad is a Vietnam war Veteran and often talks about having banana beer while in Vietnam. I’m curious- in the course of your reading about this, did you come across the Vietnamese word for “banana beer?” My dad always called it “ban me bah” but I have a feeling that’s not how it’s spelled!

Click to expand...