Banana beer

[WarBully]

What is the best way to get the flavor of banana really present in a beer? We put banana chips in during the boil. It's still not as present as we'd (my friend and I) like. Should we find an extract for the secondary or mash and boil bananas to add to the secondary? Trying to figure out how Wells did it with their banana nut bread beer. Any help is greatly appreciated!


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[chickypad]

You could get a German hefeweizen yeast, underpitch it, and ferment hot. That should get you a banana bomb.

 

[Sbarnard80]

You could get a German hefeweizen yeast, underpitch it, and ferment hot. That should get you a banana bomb.

I did a wells clone a while back and had the same experience. Used wlp380 yeast on a another hefe beer and it screamed bananas. Wlp380 is what I am going to use for my next wells attempt. I would also toss some blended fresh sanitized bananas in the secondary as well.

 

[Northbanu]

you could get a german hefeweizen yeast, underpitch it, and ferment hot. That should get you a banana bomb.

+1

 

[LLBeanJ]

If you want intense banana flavor, you need to ferment bananas. Check out this thread.

 

[moreb33rplz]

Just take my blonde I fermented too hot. Bananas for days

 

[WarBully]

Thank you everyone for responding. I have heard that the yeast can do the trick. We ended up going with a more neutral yeast but will go the route of the hefe yeast next time. We were just worried about having too much clove flavor. Some questions as we are still noobs: What do you mean by underpitch and ferment hot?


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[Zoidberg]

I would try roasted some sliced banana in the oven for a bit then adding it to he mash. I did this with pumpkin and the flavor shined through. Even on recently opened bottled as this was brewed in September.

 

[chickypad]

Thank you everyone for responding. I have heard that the yeast can do the trick. We ended up going with a more neutral yeast but will go the route of the hefe yeast next time. We were just worried about having too much clove flavor. Some questions as we are still noobs: What do you mean by underpitch and ferment hot?

You want to pitch a good amount of healthy yeast for proper fermentation without off flavors, and there are certain accepted pitch rates for this. With liquid yeast this usually means making a starter to grow the proper amount, using a calculator like mrmalty or yeastcalc. To accentuate the esters (banana) and suppress the phenolics (clove) you would try to stress the yeast a bit by pitching less than the optimum amount. In essence you are creating what would be considered an off flavor in many styles. I don't have much direct experience with this as I'm not a fan of the banana and I'm not sure what exact pitch rate you should aim for, but you might achieve it by pitching your vial or smack pack directly without a starter. Fermenting at the very upper limit of the yeast's reported range should also accentuate the banana and suppress the clove. So for example for Wyeast 3068 maybe ferment around 75*.

 

[jro238]

+1 to pretty much everything Chickypad said. I have used 3068 several times and 75 will definitely give you a huge amount of banana flavor but may also give you some other off flavors as well. I would personally shoot for pitching at 69 and letting it rise up to 72 in the first couple days of fermentation. This should give you a lot of the banana you are looking for while still maintaining a relatively clean fermentation.

 

[alker12]

I just made a hefeweizen using wyeast 3068 weihenstephan, and to really accentuate the banana flavors instead of under pitching and fermenting on the hot side I pitched a proper amount of yeast and fermented on the cool side around 62 degrees ferinheight. I have read that the hot side of this yeast accentuates the clove like flavors that it produces while the cool side accentuates the banana flavors, in brewing classic styles Jamil backs this up, stating that "this temperature creates a beautiful balance of fermentation flavors" and ferments his weizen beers around 62 degrees. I know it may be contradictory to some things you have read but the hefeweizen I just brewed tasted like straight bananas.

 

[Macdonald87]

I used WLP 380 as well!! My whole closet smells like bananna bread!! Also just be forewarned you need a lot of head space!!!

Thats how high it fermented! Fermenteded steadily around 70*

 

[WarBully]

Thanks for the tips!!


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[mdautry]

How hoppy are you making yours? I had read that traditionally the style was a light hop, sweet not bitter. Are there styles of Hefs with more hops and are they well received?


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