Banana wheat lager

Has anyone ever tried this? I was thinking about just brewing a regular wheat beer and in the secondary putting chopped bananas in there with it. Almost the same method as dry hopping except with bananas not hops.

Just wash them well. Or better yet pasturize them. If you like bananas, it might turn out awesome. The hard part is determining how much banana to put in.

You could also use hefeweizen yeast to get banana flavor.

i've got 20 pounds of bananas fermenting with a weizen yeast and brett b right now. it's also got some oats in it. it looks pretty gross, but tastes all right so far. i'm trying to think of a way to filter with banana leaves and not introduce a ton of o2. brourweijiiewe de troch makes chapeau banana lambic that is pretty delicious... go for it!

I do not really know what goes into pasturizing them. Did you put the oats in their to give it a bready flavor? What about dehydrated banana chips, would this work also?

JonM said:

You could also use hefeweizen yeast to get banana flavor.

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I use this for my honey weizen I make. Gives off a nice banana flavor.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/rw_yeaststrain_detail.cfm?ID=135

i don't pasteurize, i freeze them, then thaw them under hot water until i can peel them, then i throw them in a bucket and let them sit in the warmest part of the house for a few days. then i mash them up. this seems to get the sugar content pretty high. i think when you cook or boil bananas, they get more starchy than sugary- i would think chips would be pretty starchy too. i'm mostly concerned with getting as much sugar as i can from them, i figure if anything gets into the beer, the brett will clean it up. I get a little bread from the oats, but its mostly to add mouthfeel- the banana is a little thin after fermentation.

Generally, pasteurization just means you heat them up to the point that it kills any bacteria that might infect you beer. Not sure the exact trmp that wd be, tho. Then before you put it in your fermenter you let ut cool to room temp.

I am one of several people chasing this "banana beer" idea.
1) wheat beer yeast or other gives banana ester under stress. In theory you can achieve this by Under pitching a yeast like WLP300 in wort at 80 degrees or higher and attempt to maintain a fermentation at 70 deg or warmer. I say in theory because I tried this and failed on all three counts but my technique sucked for that brew.

2) you can add banana to the fermentor. I didn't try this but will next time. I think fresh bananas roasted in oven and then frozen and added to secondary is a good way to get flavor as well as control bugs. Remember, under the skin there really shouldn't be much that can spoil your beer so whatever you choose to do, stay clean and sanitize and it should help your piece of mind.

3) fake it. There are commercial examples like Well's banana bread beer that brew with banana BUT also say artificial flavor added. If you really want it to stand out, you may need to at least tweak with some type of additive like from the LHBS in the bottling bucket/keg,'or the secondary with somthing like I did: 99 bananas and vanilla bean tincture.

Whatever you do, good luck and post updates.