Banana Wine

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Just started 4 gallons of it. I don't need 4 gallons of banana wine, but that's how many bananas were on sale and I want to practice winemaking, so...

This time I added the requisite additions to help the flavor. People just stare at me when I tell them I'm making banana wine. Then their jaws hit the floor when I tell them it takes 2 years before it's ready to drink! LOL!
 
Where am I supposed to find 5'ish pounds of golden raisins without preservatives... oh yea thats what a dehydrator is for:mug:




Not Shown,

All 18 pounds of grapes!

2-13-2015 696.jpg
 
Made this wine again this past weekend. I forgot how wonderful the house smells when the bananas are in the pot. It'll be tough to wait another 2 years for it to mature.
 
Ugh. I forgot to add my raisins during the primary ferment. I haven't even looked at this since I checked the yeast to see if it got going. Probably need to sneak this into a secondary this weekend and see if I can coax the yeast to get going with a few raisins to start with then add more as it gets going.
 
I just made my first batch of this stuff. I made a 3 gallon batch with the raisens in the primary. I aimed a little low for the OG at 1.080 as I am planning on making this sparkling in time. I will post pictures of my riddling and degorging etc.
 
Hopefully these are oriented right side up... I forgot to take a picture of it fermenting with the raisins in primary. Once I move on to bottling, riddling and dégorging it should get kinda fun! I will be in uncharted waters in my fermenting experiences.

image.jpg
 
Racked mine to secondary. It's kind of late, but better late than never! The primary had a ton of gunk floating and sunken in the primary. Almost looked like tapioca globs. A lot of it got into the secondary, but it should settle out nicely (I hope).

I only added about 1/4 -1/3 the amount of raisins. I hope to get the yeast going on them before adding more.
 
Finally made this, earlier this week. It's fermenting like MAD! I've waded through some of the pages, but didn't find a good source of golden raisins without sulphites or preservatives. I don't own a dehydrator, so I'm assuming they're something I can get at some hippy store?

Based on all the reviews on here, I'm also going to make a batch of this every 6 months until it's ready. Bananas are cheap, I tend to just take the last rejects from our bunches that we buy (what we would toss out), so I consider it a nearly-free recipe :)
 
I think golden raisins always have preservatives because they would turn color if they didn't. Plain raisins are already dark, so there is no need for it.

And I'm happy to report that my raisins seem to be fermenting away, so I plan to add more soon. My wine looked like dirty dish water after I racked it and degassed it, but the next day it was settled nicely and looks pretty now.
 
So the preservatives don't hurt the end product? I'll see if I can get them from a health food store, will probably have the least amount of additional junk on them - but I doubt I can find natural raisins in my lame city.
 
So I just poured 2gal into 1gal jugs, and had to top up with tap water... and I noticed this grossness floating on the top of the jugs (didn't pay attention to the carboy). If it helps put things in perspective, 2 gal of wine was in a 3gal jug for 10 days (life got busy at 7 days)

2xpIGuw.jpg
 
I started this about 8 weeks ago. I opted for lighter bodied wine with 3 lbs of bananas, 1 lb of raisins, and 2 lbs of sugar. When I first racked I had all sorts of crud, foam, and in one jug I accumulated almost 6 inches of silt less than 5 days after racking to secondary. I threw some of my overflow into mason jars and fridged them to clear faster. Amazing how the color changes on this as it clears, and the little bit I tried on the still slightly cloudy sample was pretty great - not what I expected at all. No way will this last two years post bottling.
 
Tasted a 5 month old sample of my 3rd batch and it's incredible. It tastes much better than previous batches already and the older batches are 2+ years old. The only difference is that I washed the bananas beforehand (which I also did on my 2nd batch), halved the raisins and used Montrachet yeast instead of Red Star Champagne. This seems to be a winning combination for me, so I'm going to do this going forward.
 
So I tried a bottle before riddling and it is delish! Now I'm riddling the rest and will dègorge in a few weeks/months and will post about that adventure. Yooper, thanks gain for posting this one! I'm looking forward to a 5 gallon sparkling batch soon :)

image.jpg
 
Made my batch in March of 2013. Going to back-sweeten today and bottle in a few days. still tastes pretty boozy after over two years but back-sweetening should help make that less noticeable. Warms the throat. I've had it in carboys transferring every so many months. Gave it a couple cinnamon sticks and a clove about 3 months ago. I'm looking for a sweet banana wine that can be used for drinking and banana foster.
 
OK, heading to the store to buy the bananas. But first...

And for the record, I DID read the entire thread! I figure if I'm investing two years, I better spend an hour reading first...


Here's my question: @Yooper or anyone else want to provide detail on the daily "stirring" and whether to be shaking/swirling the bottle or actually using a aeration whip? I did the swirling method for my BOMM and it seemed to work OK but I have a brand new whip that's just begging to be put into service.

Thanks!
 
skydiver30960 said:
OK, heading to the store to buy the bananas. But first...

And for the record, I DID read the entire thread! I figure if I'm investing two years, I better spend an hour reading first...


Here's my question: @Yooper or anyone else want to provide detail on the daily "stirring" and whether to be shaking/swirling the bottle or actually using a aeration whip? I did the swirling method for my BOMM and it seemed to work OK but I have a brand new whip that's just begging to be put into service.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can just stir with a long handled sanitized spoon- a whip may be overkill (but won't hurt).
 
WTH... Murphy's Law, I guess...

I can go to the store, buy a bunch of GREEN bananas, and it seems like they're sickly brown by later that afternoon. But here, the ONE time I actually WANT them to brown up, they just sit on the counter, barely getting brown specks, day after day, LAUGHING at me. C'MON! I WANNA MAKE MY WINE, ALREADY!

Well, we'll see who laughs last...
 
I made a gallon batch of Banana Wine...spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, and a couple of cloves. Prettiest wine I have made so far and tasted pretty good too. It has been bottled since Feb., will pull the cork on a bottle this Christmas.
 
Sorry if this has been addressed already, but I could I replace some of the sugar with brown sugar? I stared this last night (basically just moved banana's to the fridge to thaw) but stopped when I realized I didn't have enough white sugar. I'll go to the store and get some more white sugar tonight, but it was just a thought I had last night.
 
Tsuyako said:
Sorry if this has been addressed already, but I could I replace some of the sugar with brown sugar? I stared this last night (basically just moved banana's to the fridge to thaw) but stopped when I realized I didn't have enough white sugar. I'll go to the store and get some more white sugar tonight, but it was just a thought I had last night.
Click to expand...

You could- but I think fermented brown sugar has a terrible flavor. it's a flavor of molasses but without sweetness, and I think it's horrid. It could work in a dark ale (maybe) if you didn't hate molasses, but not in a light wine.
 
I made a 6 gallon batch of this last week. Ended up with about 5.9 gallons of must in the primary at an OG of 1.122. Pitched the wine yeast on September 23 and as of last night the SG was at 1.011 and it still tasted quite sweet I don't remember the exact Lalvin wine yeast I used but I seem to recall that the package said it was good up to 14%.

I am concerned now that the yeast will crap out before it is fully attenuated and am wondering if it was a mistake not to dilute down to somewhere around a 1.100 OG. Using brewersfriend dilution calculator, had I diluted this 5.9 gallons with approximately 1.1 gallons of water the OG would have been around 1.100.

Is it too late to dilute this?

My intuition tells me it isn't but I wanted to float this idea here and see if anyone with more vintning experience could advise me. Thank you.
 
New to the wine thing, but when it says "may taste after 6 months, matures up to 2 years", when does that clock start? Is it from when you create the wine day 1, bottling day, or somewhere in between?

Thanks,
 
G-Pong said:
New to the wine thing, but when it says "may taste after 6 months, matures up to 2 years", when does that clock start? Is it from when you create the wine day 1, bottling day, or somewhere in between?

Thanks,
Click to expand...

I'm new too, as I understand it that time frame is from the day you bottle.
 
I have a question regarding leaving the skin on the fruit when boiling and preparing the pulp. This doesn't look like a good idea to me due to the pesticide and fungicide used while transporting bananas from the fields, just like with oranges and other citrus.

It might be worth mentioning in the OP to use organic bananas, or dismissing the use of peel from the recipe.
 
Odd. My last batch is not too clear compared to the previous batches. It's been in the bottle a couple of months.

And it's a bit sweeter and more banana flavor than the previous batches. No hint of carbonation, so I doubt the yeast is going to cause issues. (Plus I bottled in beer bottles because it's easier.)

And for complete disclosure, the test sample I tasted came from the last bottle I filled and it was not quite filled to the top.
 
Really thinking about trying this out this week. Biggest decision is whether I should do a 5G or 1G batch. I'd hate to do a 1 gallon and find out that it's delicious in two years and only have a few bottles ready - but I'm also hesitant to tie up a 5g carboy for that long. So many decisions!
 
HappyFermentations said:
Really thinking about trying this out this week. Biggest decision is whether I should do a 5G or 1G batch. I'd hate to do a 1 gallon and find out that it's delicious in two years and only have a few bottles ready - but I'm also hesitant to tie up a 5g carboy for that long. So many decisions!
Click to expand...

Do 5 gallons for now and 5 more gallons within the next month. You won't regret it.
 
jwelch1103 said:
I made a 6 gallon batch of this last week. Ended up with about 5.9 gallons of must in the primary at an OG of 1.122. Pitched the wine yeast on September 23 and as of last night the SG was at 1.011 and it still tasted quite sweet I don't remember the exact Lalvin wine yeast I used but I seem to recall that the package said it was good up to 14%.

I am concerned now that the yeast will crap out before it is fully attenuated and am wondering if it was a mistake not to dilute down to somewhere around a 1.100 OG. Using brewersfriend dilution calculator, had I diluted this 5.9 gallons with approximately 1.1 gallons of water the OG would have been around 1.100.

Is it too late to dilute this?

My intuition tells me it isn't but I wanted to float this idea here and see if anyone with more vintning experience could advise me. Thank you.
Click to expand...

I'd wait and see. It may be too hot for a while, or it might be great. Diluting may or may not be beneficial, but you can do it later if you want to dilute.
 

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