Am I on the right track with my first "experiment"

I've been brewing wine for years, and in the past few months I've been making some beer while I wait on wine juice to come in. Being a new brewer, I just want to check with everyone to see if my thinking is along the right path for this experiment. I've made three batches of beer before (all ales, one wheat). For my 4th batch, I selected a kit from Midwest:

Oatmeal Stout w/ **Fermentis Safale S-04 11.5 gm dry yeast**

This Stout kit is smoother, slightly sweeter, and has a clean, roasted, malty flavor and chewy texture from the oats. Our ingredients for this recipe include: 6 lbs. Dark liquid malt extract, 8 oz. Rolled Oats, 4 oz. Chocolate Malt, 4 oz. Roasted Barley specialty grains, 1 oz. Fuggle pellet hops, yeast, priming sugar and a grain bag.

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The bakery my girlfriend works at was getting rid of about 5 lbs of banana puree, so we decided to put it to good use.... beer.

My thought process here is to brew the kit as instructed, put it into the primary for a week or so until the primary fermentation is done. Then I'm going to add about 4 ounces of cacao nibs, and a few lbs of the banana puree to the container while it completes the secondary fermentation/clarification. I'm totally torn, and quite confused if I should rack it between the primary/secondary, as just about every thread on the topic goes back and forth causing me more confusion.

I do have a couple of open ale pales, but no glass carboys available at the moment.

Please poke holes in my plans, and tell me what you think would be better, or if I might have a decent chance at pulling this out.

I suppose the worst case scenario, I make some crappy beer while drinking beer and enjoying a cigar.

btw: been lurking for a while, so here's my "first post".

I'd give it at least two weeks in primary, maybe three. Stout should be a fairly high OG, so it needs good time to ferment in the primary. Put your puree and cocao on the bottom of the dry secondary and rack on top of it. You are going to get some more yeast activity while the ferementables in the banana are consumed.

I'm not certain myself how much banana puree falvor is going to stick with beer, so maybe someone else can chime in with their experience. If it sticks well, then you would just let it ferment out in the secondary. If it doesn't stick well, you may need to only let it ferment 1/2 way, cold crash to stop fermentation, then bottle/keg and condition.

Chocolate Oatmeal Banana Stout sounds purdy tasty. Let us know how it turns out!

Your plan sounds great! One thing I am not sure about is if the bannana puree is sanitary. If not you may want to consider pasturizing it first! Also, you probably already know this from wine, but freezing it helps break down the cell walls in fruit making them more accessable to the yeast!

I've never personally added fruit or anything of the sort to beer, but from what I understand, although the argument is continuous on whether a secondary is needed in normal brewing, most agree that they are required if you're going to add something. So unless I'm wrong, definitely rack to a secondary, and add any fruit etc. then. This is also the time to dry-hop, if you feel the urge.

Let us know how the banana flavor comes through!

Whew, I'm relieved that I'm not 100% off base here. I'm really looking forward to giving this one a try.

TopherM: I read on some other threads that a lot more puree is needed than an extract, but nothing really concrete. I'm thinking about 2.5# may do it, but that's mostly a guess at this point.

Germelli1: I had actually not thought to look at the puree to see if it's pasteurized or not, it's in a large food service container, so I'll have to check it out when I get home.

Oh and buckets will work fine for a secondary in your case. You usually want a smaller, glass secondary so there is no headspace (thus no ozidation) and the glass is more desireably for long term aging. In your case the sugars in the bananas will get eaten by the yeast and re form an nice protective blanket of c02 over your beer.

I just recently did a strawberry blonde from an imperial blonde kit. I let it sit in the bucket for 2 weeks until the airlock pretty much went dead, then I dropped in 5 lbs of frozen strawberries in a mesh bag and let it sit for another 2 weeks. It started the airlock up again for a few days, then nothing for a long while, so a month total brew time.

I just recently bottled it and after bottle conditioning for 2 weeks, it's pretty damn tasty. The strawberry flavor is really noticeable as I think I may have put a wee bit too much fruit in it, but good none-the-less.

I have zero experience with adding puree, and nothing much to add other than what has already been said - but that sounds YUMMY. Be sure to post the recipe if its good.

OneGallonHomebrew said:

I have zero experience with adding puree, and nothing much to add other than what has already been said - but that sounds YUMMY. Be sure to post the recipe if its good.

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I was going to start last night, but it was right around 100 degrees outside, so I'll be waiting a few days for the temp to break.

Can't believe I miss the snow already.

modF said:

I was going to start last night, but it was right around 100 degrees outside, so I'll be waiting a few days for the temp to break.

Can't believe I miss the snow already.

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Yeah, this heat has me questioning my brew plans too. I wanted to start a Graff this weekend, but it is *hot* here.

When you are checking if the banana puree is pasteurized, you may also want to check if it has any other additives or preservatives that may screw with the yeast.

I don't know much about adding fruit, but a couple procedural things of I've read may help:

You may have to rack to a third container to get it off the banana trub before bottling, to help clarify.

If you don't have three buckets, you could probably add the fruit to he primary (after fermentation and yeast "cleaning"), then rack to a secondary afterwards to clarify.

Just a couple extra ideas. There's no one right way to do it. Let us know how this turns out.

Just a little update, racked the beer into the secondary last night and put in about a gallon or so worth of the banana puree, and 4oz of cacao nibs.. Smells amazing so far, can't wait to try this.

About a month after racking I bottled, then let it carb for about two weeks. It's pretty awesome, the banana really comes through in the taste, followed by the chocolate. The only issue that I found so far was because the banana puree was liquid, and there was so much of it, the beer only yielded about a case and a half. There was a lot of sediment/puree at the bottom.

For a wacky experiment, just to get rid of some banana puree, I'm quite happy with the beer. A bit on the sweet side, but it goes very well by the outdoor fireplace now that it's chilly.

How does the banana flavor compare to, say, a Hefeweizen where you get banana notes without needing the fruit? A chocolate stout fermented with a German ale yeast might be pretty interesting.

One trick I've found when brewing with fruit in the secondary is to use a large nylon fine-mesh bag and place my auto-siphon tube inside it. I then secure the bag to the tube at the top using rubber bands (it's high enough that it's out of the way and not in contact with the beer).

That way you really minimize the amount of particulates you transfer into your "tertiary" fermenter, and you also maximize the amount of beer that you can siphon off (you worked hard for this beer, after all!).

The first picture is of the mesh bag setup as I described, with the fruit sediment in the bottom. The second picture is the beautiful, particulate-free beer that I was able to siphon out.

I was using fresh frozen crushed fruit, not a puree, however, so I can't comment on whether a very fine puree would clog the mesh or not. But it would certainly be worth a try in my opinion.

gr8shandini said:

How does the banana flavor compare to, say, a Hefeweizen where you get banana notes without needing the fruit? A chocolate stout fermented with a German ale yeast might be pretty interesting.

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I'm not really sure to be honest, but I'm leaning towards saying it's very different. It's almost what I would consider a desert beer, like a meal in it's own..

Overpanic said:

One trick I've found when brewing with fruit in the secondary is to use a large nylon fine-mesh bag and place my auto-siphon tube inside it. I then secure the bag to the tube at the top using rubber bands (it's high enough that it's out of the way and not in contact with the beer).

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That's definitely worth a shot if I ever do something like this again. Overall I'm very happy with it, but I would have liked to had at least another 12 pack or so of beer..

btw: great pics..