Freezing banana ?

[fatbloke]

Was given a case of banana yesterday.

I'd like to use half in primary and the rest in secondary.

The primary will just be sliced banana, water, honey, nutrient/energiser etc.

Now as we often lose some of the fruit flavour to the yeast during primary ferment, secondary on fruit is intended.

Hence if possible, I'd like to freeze some of the fruit.

Does anyone know if banana freezes Ok or does it just go black and slimey once defrosted ?

(this post has also been placed at Gotmead - as I really need to do something with the fruit today, before it starts going off)

 

[Goofynewfie]

It will go black and slimey but thats what you want. If you check out thr recipe database Yooper has posted a excellent banana wine recipe

 

[fatbloke]

It will go black and slimey but thats what you want. If you check out thr recipe database Yooper has posted a excellent banana wine recipe

it doesn't matter really, I'll just "top and tail" the whole lot into a 19 litre fermenter and run the lot as primary and see how it comes out.

I'll just have to actually buy some for secondary if it needs it.........

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

They do turn black, well the skins do but it doesn't get slimy on the outside, the fruit itself gets real mushy, sticky, and I guess could be called slimy when it thaws. I often will freeze a banana or two if somehow the kids don't devour them and they get a little riper than we like to eat, then save them that way til I have enough for some banana bread or a batch of muffins. If you process them frozen they are easy to work with. Peel and dice them frozen to add to pancakes works great, they are nicely thawed and warm by the time the pancake is done.

 

[huesmann]

As the medic says, the skins will go black, but are you intending to include the skins in your mead?

 

[fatbloke]

As the medic says, the skins will go black, but are you intending to include the skins in your mead?

Most of the recipes I looked up before (for the other batch I've got on the go with free bananas) also said about cutting them up and boiling them first, then straining the flesh and skin out and using the liquor.

I just haven't bothered this time. I mixed up 10 litres of water, 4 kg of honey and it seems to give me a gravity of 1.080, but that would be without the sugars in the fruit. The fermenter is a 19 litre water cooler bottle, so apart from the approximately 2.25litres by volume of honey, the rest is all fruit. I could probably have got another half a dozen bananas into it, but I lost count with what I did use! It's got about 8tsp of pectolase in it and about an hour ago, I got impatient and sprinkled a pack of K1V-1116 into it as well.

Is what it looks like at the moment.

I've also peeled some and bagged them before putting them in the freezer, plus I put some still in skins, but "topped and tailed" into a different bag. It doesn't matter if they go off, I'll just dump them, though if they stay in reasonable condition, I'll use them as flavouring for secondary.

All I need to do now is to work out what I'm gonna do (if anything) with the other 8 kilos.........

 

[huesmann]

A metric ass-ton of banana bread?

 

[fatbloke]

A metric ass-ton of banana bread?

So far, "erindoors" has done 1 batch of banana muffins, 4 straight cakes of "banana bread" and 2 with banana and walnut.

She did mention another that is banana, dates and rum. Whether that gets made, I don't know. There's still about 4 kilos left. So I might just chuck some more in the freezer......

 

[Goofynewfie]

banana splits?