Bottling with Homemade Banana Puree

Since I was lazy and never got around to placing an order for some Organic Banana Nectar (made by Looza) and chocolate extract, I am kinda forced to improvise with my bottling procedures.

The brew at hand is some sort of Banana/Chocolate/Foster experiment. Having little experience with either ingredient I added a puree of 2 bananas, and some cocoa powder at ~5 minutes remaining in the boil. I tasted my hydrometer sample (after 12 days in primary) the other day and it wasn't as sweet as I had hoped. Most of the banana and chocolate flavor (as somewhat expected) was victim of rigorous fermentation.

I am looking to introduce a bit more of both flavors at bottling time. Again, with little experience, and lack of proper ingredients, I am going to improvise. Here's what I'm thinking:

(!!Brew Volume is only 2.5ga.)

Another banana puree
-2 medium bananas (~14g sugar each)

More Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
-.5 to 1oz? (Unsure of amount..And any fermentability?)

Possibly a dash of pure vanilla extract and maybe a touch of cinnamon?

Ok. With that aside.. I've got another issue. I've ran some figures through beer smith, and it suggests 1.77oz of priming sugar or 50.2g for 2.3vol/co2. If the bananas account for 28g is it really as simple as adding 22.2g of priming sugar to the solution?

Any help, advice, criticism or flat out hatred is welcome.

I wish I could come up with some flat out hatred! But I can't, so I'll be forced into being nice and hopefully helpful.

It sounds to me like you're already into experimenting, so I would say to try any or all of those changes. As for the cocoa powder, I don't think there will be any fermentable sugars in them. But I don't know the chemical makeup of such a substance, so I'm not 100% sure. What brand/type of powder are you using?

I like the idea of Cinnamon. Never tried using it, but it sounds tastey.

I'm not sure about the math on the priming sugar... so I'll let someone else answer that, and hopefully I'll learn from it too.

If you want a little more sweetness left, toss a bit of lactose in there.

The only issue I see with your math is that even if each banana is 14 grams of sugar...what are those sugars? What % fermentable?

Nic0, thanks for the reply. As I said, anything is appreciated.

Dorklord, after some careful consideration of my setup, equipment, and brew process, I decided to put lactose in the at the 5 minute mark of the boil. I used 8oz for 2.5ga. Should I try a touch more at bottling time as well?

Also, I will do more research and try to find out what the make-up of banana sugars are. Thank you very much for the insight. I bottle today, so I'll let you know what I've come up with.

shauntraxler said:

Nic0, thanks for the reply. As I said, anything is appreciated.

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No problem. Do you recall what brand of cocoa powder you used?

Nestle TollHouse unsweetened. 100% cocoa. Not defatted though.

dorklord said:

...if each banana is 14 grams of sugar...what are those sugars? What % fermentable?

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I did a little digging and found this...

"The three natural types of sugars banana contain are sucrose, fructose, and glucose"

On a different site I found this amazing information! (http://www.fineli.fi/food.php?foodid=11049&lang=en)

In summary... The sugar composition of a banana is as follows:

Sucrose: 6.4g
Glucose: 4.4g
Fructose: 2.7g

Add them up and I get 13.5g of 100% fermentable sugar. 2 bananas would equal 27g so 23.2g of cane sugar would give me proper carbonation correct?

You mentioned that the hydrometer sample wasn't as 'sweet' as you hoped. If you want it to be sweeter, you'll have to add something that is not fermentable, and it appears that the sugars in the banana are entirely fermentable.

Now, if all you want is more flavor, the bananas (and cocoa if you want more of that flavor) should do it. But they probably won't make it any sweeter (I don't know if the unsweetened cocoa would make it more bitter or not).

I just finished bottling and cleaning.

This is what I went with:

-Began boil of 16oz water with 23.2g cane sugar

Added just after boil for no more than 3 or 4 minutes:
-Pureed 2 bananas in 8oz water
-Added 1/2 tsp organic vanilla ext (no corn syrup)
-Added 2 taps of high grade Saigon Cinnamon (What an amazing measurement standard huh?)
-Added 1oz Nestle Tollhouse Unsweetened Cocoa Powder.

According to my calculations this should be a sufficient amount of primer to have perfect carbed (to 2.3 vols) brew. I'll try to keep this updated if anyone is interested.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I passed the banana puree through a fine SS strainer. Upon doing so it became next to impossible to extract ALL of the banana. Therefore, I compensated with an additional 2g cane sugar.

Alright. So, I may be in a sticky situation, or I may just have to RDWHAHB.

I've got some SERIOUS floaters in my bottles. I mean, it's only been 3 days, but I'm talking full-on, legitimate, BLOBS in my bottles. I fear the banana may be recongealing inside. Or, as I have heard, is it just the cocoa sludge?

Any input?

shauntraxler said:

Alright. So, I may be in a sticky situation, or I may just have to RDWHAHB.

I've got some SERIOUS floaters in my bottles. I mean, it's only been 3 days, but I'm talking full-on, legitimate, BLOBS in my bottles. I fear the banana may be recongealing inside. Or, as I have heard, is it just the cocoa sludge?

Any input?

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Well, if banana puree settles out in secondary (this I'm assuming, I've never used it), you can expect it to settle out in the bottles. Right now, maybe it is just being 'floated' by CO2 bubbles.

Same goes for blobs of cocoa...

It may take time, but if the stuff settled out before, I would expect it to settle out this time.

If it does settle out, you'll probably have a lot of sediment in the bottles, which will make pouring a bit more of a PIA, but no big deal.

FYI, this is why people generally add these sorts of items after primary fermentation if finished (either by dumping into the primary, or racking onto them in a secondary). So that they'll settle out and be left behind when racking to the bottling bucket.

Some people might be scared by a lot of sediment in the bottles, but that doesn't mean it won't taste good!

Aye! Thank you! It's funny how even though most of us know our beer will likely turn out fine, we still need to hear it will all be ok from at least one person on this forum.

But the tips are definitely noted. No more bottling with banana puree.

shauntraxler said:

Aye! Thank you! It's funny how even though most of us know our beer will likely turn out fine, we still need to hear it will all be ok from at least one person on this forum.

But the tips are definitely noted. No more bottling with banana puree.

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Who knows, maybe it will turn out so good you don't want to mess with perfection next time.

I swear I once hear someone talk about jamming some kind of fruit into their bottles before filling with beer...

dorklord said:

I swear I once hear someone talk about jamming some kind of fruit into their bottles before filling with beer...

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Hahaha. That's hilarious. would be kind of like the worm on the bottom of the liquor bottle. It's not that uncommon to have things that need to be 'avoided' at the bottom of liquor bottles, who says beer can't be the same?! lol.

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Quick Edit: Checked bottles again today... The good news is, the floaties are settling. The bad news is, the single plastic bottle I sealed (to know when proper carbing has been reached) is getting ROCK HARD and it's only been a few days. I'm starting to fear some bottle bombs.

Alrighty HBT'ers... I cracked a bottle today to see what was going on in there. (I know, impatience is a biatch.) Anywho, the bottle I chose had little to no floaties and about 2 inches of 'sludge' at the bottom... So I figured, why not?

I opened the brew and the aroma was simply AMAZING. And I mean it. Amazing. I poured a small amount into my pint glass and gave it a quick taste. The beer is really really good, however...the banana didn't come through half as much in the taste as it did in the aroma. The beer is slightly too bitter for the style I was going for. I think this is directly linked to the bitterness of the cocoa I added at bottling time. As I was sipping the brew, I smelled the container of cocoa in the pantry, and it smelled exactly like my beer tasted. Chocolatey, but bitter chocolatey. Haha. On a note unrelated to flavor, the carbonation experiment seems to be going PERFECT.

Now, I think I am going to brew this same beer 2 batches from now and try these things:

Chocolate Extract in secondary and at bottling.
Banana Puree @ 5 min boil and in secondary but not at bottling.
Slightly more cinnamon.
Slightly more vanilla.
Slightly more lactose.

Critiques? Ideas?

This thread was an interesting read!
What yeast did you use?
I think weinhenstafen or bavarian wheat yeast may give you more banana flavor, its esters are supposed to be banana-y

I may try a 1 gal version of this

Cascadegan said:

This thread was an interesting read!
What yeast did you use?
I think weinhenstafen or bavarian wheat yeast may give you more banana flavor, its esters are supposed to be banana-y

I may try a 1 gal version of this

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Yeah, I've read about that. But I had Notty on hand so I just pitched that. I just prefer to use real ingredients the way they are intended instead of going with yeast that has to be fermented at much too high a temperature for that yeast. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably do that someday, but for now, I want success with real fruit.

shauntraxler said:

Alrighty HBT'ers... I cracked a bottle today to see what was going on in there. (I know, impatience is a biatch.) Anywho, the bottle I chose had little to no floaties and about 2 inches of 'sludge' at the bottom... So I figured, why not?

I opened the brew and the aroma was simply AMAZING. And I mean it. Amazing. I poured a small amount into my pint glass and gave it a quick taste. The beer is really really good, however...the banana didn't come through half as much in the taste as it did in the aroma. The beer is slightly too bitter for the style I was going for. I think this is directly linked to the bitterness of the cocoa I added at bottling time. As I was sipping the brew, I smelled the container of cocoa in the pantry, and it smelled exactly like my beer tasted. Chocolatey, but bitter chocolatey. Haha. On a note unrelated to flavor, the carbonation experiment seems to be going PERFECT.

Now, I think I am going to brew this same beer 2 batches from now and try these things:

Chocolate Extract in secondary and at bottling.
Banana Puree @ 5 min boil and in secondary but not at bottling.
Slightly more cinnamon.
Slightly more vanilla.
Slightly more lactose.

Critiques? Ideas?

Click to expand...

I would just use the banana in secondary. I think what you add in the boil, the flavors are going to get boiled off, and whatever is left will get eaten by the yeast. I'd say just use the same total amount of banana as you did the first time, but put it all in secondary. Chocolate extract or cocoa powder at the same time, and then just bump up your lactose if you want it sweeter. Alternatively, reducing your hops to reduce the bitterness might work. I don't recall you mentioning what you used for hops, but perhaps the same amount of a lower-AA hops would get the desired result.

It sounds tasty though. If my wife gets wind of this, she'll probably want me to make a GF banana beer...

Actually, what was the recipe?

dorklord said:

I would just use the banana in secondary. I think what you add in the boil, the flavors are going to get boiled off, and whatever is left will get eaten by the yeast. I'd say just use the same total amount of banana as you did the first time, but put it all in secondary. Chocolate extract or cocoa powder at the same time, and then just bump up your lactose if you want it sweeter. Alternatively, reducing your hops to reduce the bitterness might work. I don't recall you mentioning what you used for hops, but perhaps the same amount of a lower-AA hops would get the desired result.

It sounds tasty though. If my wife gets wind of this, she'll probably want me to make a GF banana beer...

Actually, what was the recipe?

Click to expand...

I was actually looking over my notes just a second ago. I plugged the hops, boil vol, and all that good jazz into BeerSmith and came up with something almost TOO low at like 27 IBU. You would think with ratings that low, the sweet would REALLY shine. No dice.

So here's my little 2.25ga recipe:

STEEPED: (Room temp to 155 deg)
-----------
4oz Crystal 60
2oz Chocolate Malt
2oz Biscuit Malt
1oz Fresh Ground Coffee Beans
1 Whole Cinnamon Stick

BOILED
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3lb Briess Pilsen DME
8oz Lactose (@5min)
2 Medium/Large Bananas (Puree @5min)
.25oz Tollhouse Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (@5min)
.25oz Nugget Hops (@60min 13%AA)
.50oz Kent Goldings (@40min 5%AA)
.50oz Cascade (@10min 5.5%AA)

BOTTLED
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23.2g Cane Sugar boiled
2 Banana Puree (Passed through sink strainer) added @ Flame Out
.5tsp PURE Vanilla Extract (Flame Out)
.25tsp Cinnamon (Flame Out)
.50oz Tollhouse Cocoa Powder (Flame Out)

OG: 1.073
FG: For some reason I don't have it written down. I'd assume around or just under 1.020.


I think that about covers it. If I were to do it again, I would do, pretty much, exactly what you recommended above. All in secondary and maybe some chocolate extract at bottling. I would definitely 86 the Cocoa Powder, because I think that is where I'm getting this 'bitterness' from. The last 2 beers I've brewed have both had small amounts of cocoa in them and both have that bitter chocolate taste. Which isn't bad at all, it's just not what I was intending. I might also try that hefe yeast to get slightly more banana.

Hope this helps! And please let me know if you try it out! I would like to hear about it. I'll be brewing this again in 2 batches.

Haven't tasted another bottle yet, but the floaties are all settling somewhat nicely. It's going to be a PITA to get a good pour, but at least it will be possible.

I'll update again in about a month with another taste test.

Took some bottles on vacation with me and had the pleasure of sharing them with some friends.

This brew is going to need some serious time if it's ever going to be REALLY drinkable. At this point, it's not awful, but I would definitely reserve it as my "already drunk and want to continue but don't want to waste my really good homebrew" beverage.

Not to mention, it's still impossible to get a perfect pour with it. Oh well, we brew and we learn.