Plantains?

[Gabe]

My folks are huge into the south caribbean, and I wanted to see if anyone has ever used plantains in a batch. I was thinking about a cream ale with roughly 5-6 #'s. Because plantains have a HUGE amount of starch in them I was wondering if I could somehow convert these starches to sugar water and add to my boil. Any ideas on how to sorta mash these?
Thanks, Gabe

 

[Wrathbone]

You could mash them like anything else... but you also might want to consider baking them for a bit, to make the flavors a little more complex, then mashing them.

 

[Sea]

Not sure, but I'd think the plantains would turn into a nasty mush if you mashed, and possibly result in a stuck sparge. Maybe add a sh#t ton af rice hulls?

 

[Revvy]

There's been a bit of a discussion about it here....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=56289

And Here,

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=67349

I'm interested in it too...though I imagine looking through any threads (use the search) for anyone brewing with bananas would also yield you some moe info...

One idea (I haven't tried it, it just occured to me) when I make pumpkin beers with mashed 100% natural canned pumpkin I spread it out on cookie sheets and baked the mash in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes....I read somewhere that this helped convert the starch to sugar better, plus the mainard reaction gave the pumpkin mash the same taste profile as pumpkin pie... I wonder what doing that too the plaintains would do???

 

[Benny Blanco]

mmmm.....tostones....

 

[Revvy]

mmmm.....tostones....

I picked some up last week, with the intention of making some...I got too busy over the weekend, and now they've turned mushy...Damn.

I stuck them in the freezer, I'll make plantain bread or something with them.

 

[Gabe]

What if you just mashed the plantains in hot water, by themselves, and then put that mixture in with the boil, say at the 10 min mark?

 

[Tonedef131]

What if you just mashed the plantains in hot water, by themselves, and then put that mixture in with the boil, say at the 10 min mark?

I doubt any flavor from just steeping them would still be around after the boil. I would say in order to make it worth your time and money you would have to mash them to get the starch to convert. I am all for trying this with a bunch of rice hulls though. I would think putting them through the food processor just to mince it up without pureeing it would be the best approach.

 

[Funkenjaeger]

You can buy amylase enzyme - just throw a bunch of that in with the plantain mush and let it sit a while. Try starch tests occasionally to see if it is converted. Not sure, but it could work!

 

[Wrathbone]

How do you normally eat plantains? What taste do you connect with plantains?

If I'm not mistaken, most plantain cooking methods involve caramelizing the sugars in them. So, you'll have to find a way to bring out that flavor if you intend on adding it to a brew.

That's why I would assume it would be necessary to bake them prior to any sort of mashing.

 

[lacbrew]

Anyone ever try this plantain thing? Was thinking of adding some bananas in a secondary for half of my next brew but would be curious to see how plantains compare.

 

[v2comp]

bake them first until they sweeten and then mash them with a potato masher and stir them into the mash if you just want fermentables. if you want flavor and some fermentables from them, bake them, mash them up with potato masher and add them to secondary fermenter.

 

[Revvy]

There has been a lot more discussion of the use of bananas in the Gluten free section which didn't exist when this and the plantains thread in the similar threads box below. You can treat them like the bannanas are treated by GF brewers as well.