trbig
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- Feb 11, 2013
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I just decided to try something a bit different, so I did quite a bit of reading and came up with a recipe for banana wine. It's a combination of several recipes, mostly gotten from http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp along with some ideas from here http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2011/10/13/how-to-make-homemade-banana-wine/. It sounded good to me and is a fairly cheap wine to make, though it is much like a mead and takes some time to age.
Ingredients for my batch are:
9 lbs. ripe bananas
1 lb. Golden Raisins
6 lbs. sugar
1/4 cup each lemon and orange juce
2 cans white grape juice concentrate, thawed
2 1/2 tsp. Acid Blend
2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient
2 tsp. Pectic Enzyme
1/4 tsp. Tannin
2 1/2 gals water
1 pkg. wine yeast (I chose 71B-1122)
Peel the bananas and add them (The bananas) to the primary. Chop the skins into small pieces and put them in a muslin bag. In a pot, boil 1 1/2 gals water, add the muslin bag full of skins, bring back to simmer, not boil, then simmer the skins for 30 minutes.
While that's simmering, mash up the bananas in the primary, chop up the raisins (SOUNDS much easier than it actually is.. lol) and add them, then add the rest of the ingredients except the yeast, pectin enzyme, and sugar, then mix well. With your yeast at room temperature, make a yeast starter of 8 oz warm water, 2 Tbsp. of the sugar and a blob of the banana mixture. Mix and aerate well, then add the yeast and mix well again. The yeast starter isn't a necessity, but it's just something I almost always do with my wine making or brewing.
After the skins have simmered 30 minutes, remove pot from heat, and remove muslin bag and allow to drain. Your water will be a brownish color. Discard skins, then add sugar to hot water and stir until desolved. Add this syrup directly into your primary over your banana mush and mix/aerate well. Add the remaining gallon of cold water, mix well, and by this point, the temperature is generally low enough to add the yeast, but you can let it sit with a lid on it until room temperature first. When you add the yeast, also add the pectin enzyme. This batch made @ 3 1/2 to 4 gallons of wort. I expect heavy yeast activity, and with the thicker wort, I wanted lots of head space for foam, so I used a 7 gallon ferment bucket. I didn't take an O.G. since the liquid is so soupy. I figure the alcohol content will be fairly high, but I'm more concerned with flavor.
I'm shooting for a semi-dry wine. I plan on leaving it in the primary until airlock activity stops, or 2 weeks, whichever comes last, then racking to a secondary. I'll probably let that sit another 2 weeks, then cold crash it for a couple weeks to clear it up, then rack to a final container. I'm thinking of throwing in a couple vanilla beans at this point and let it sit at room temperature for at least a month before bottling and sampling. Most places say it takes a year before it's any good.
I've read several people who use champaign yeasts for this wine, but after my mead experiments with it, I'm trying something a little less aggressive that will leave a bit more flavor. As always, I look forward to any suggestions or comments since I'm still fairly new to brewing.
Tod
Ingredients for my batch are:
9 lbs. ripe bananas
1 lb. Golden Raisins
6 lbs. sugar
1/4 cup each lemon and orange juce
2 cans white grape juice concentrate, thawed
2 1/2 tsp. Acid Blend
2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient
2 tsp. Pectic Enzyme
1/4 tsp. Tannin
2 1/2 gals water
1 pkg. wine yeast (I chose 71B-1122)
Peel the bananas and add them (The bananas) to the primary. Chop the skins into small pieces and put them in a muslin bag. In a pot, boil 1 1/2 gals water, add the muslin bag full of skins, bring back to simmer, not boil, then simmer the skins for 30 minutes.
While that's simmering, mash up the bananas in the primary, chop up the raisins (SOUNDS much easier than it actually is.. lol) and add them, then add the rest of the ingredients except the yeast, pectin enzyme, and sugar, then mix well. With your yeast at room temperature, make a yeast starter of 8 oz warm water, 2 Tbsp. of the sugar and a blob of the banana mixture. Mix and aerate well, then add the yeast and mix well again. The yeast starter isn't a necessity, but it's just something I almost always do with my wine making or brewing.
After the skins have simmered 30 minutes, remove pot from heat, and remove muslin bag and allow to drain. Your water will be a brownish color. Discard skins, then add sugar to hot water and stir until desolved. Add this syrup directly into your primary over your banana mush and mix/aerate well. Add the remaining gallon of cold water, mix well, and by this point, the temperature is generally low enough to add the yeast, but you can let it sit with a lid on it until room temperature first. When you add the yeast, also add the pectin enzyme. This batch made @ 3 1/2 to 4 gallons of wort. I expect heavy yeast activity, and with the thicker wort, I wanted lots of head space for foam, so I used a 7 gallon ferment bucket. I didn't take an O.G. since the liquid is so soupy. I figure the alcohol content will be fairly high, but I'm more concerned with flavor.
I'm shooting for a semi-dry wine. I plan on leaving it in the primary until airlock activity stops, or 2 weeks, whichever comes last, then racking to a secondary. I'll probably let that sit another 2 weeks, then cold crash it for a couple weeks to clear it up, then rack to a final container. I'm thinking of throwing in a couple vanilla beans at this point and let it sit at room temperature for at least a month before bottling and sampling. Most places say it takes a year before it's any good.
I've read several people who use champaign yeasts for this wine, but after my mead experiments with it, I'm trying something a little less aggressive that will leave a bit more flavor. As always, I look forward to any suggestions or comments since I'm still fairly new to brewing.
Tod
Wonderful internet, double posting seleted.
