Banana Bread Ale

[MikeRLynch]

What kind of final gravity am I looking for with this? Do I want it dry, like 1.010 or a little more residual sugar, around 1.015?

 

[DeathBrewer]

what temp do you mash at?

1.055 - 1.015 (around 73% attenuation) is what i expect for mine.

usually my beers are more dry, but i mashed this guy at 154°F

 

[ApolloSpeed]

I did mine at 158f and it dropped to 150, over the course of about 60 minutes....

But I rinsed them off with room temp water...... yeah I know, I need to get another large pot so I can "sparge" at a higher temp.

Beer smith said about 1.052 at 5.5 gallons...., I ended up at about 1.049 at 6 Gallons.

 

[DeathBrewer]

wow. room temp water, eh? and still got good efficiency...hmm...

158-150...it'll probably finish pretty high.

mike, have you brewed yet or are you planning?

 

[ApolloSpeed]

I got a question....

I got a bunch of Challenger hops for super cheap in today...... should I maybe dump a little in for dry hopping? Or is that over kill?

 

[DeathBrewer]

i wouldn't. i don't bake my banana bread with challenger hops

i think the aroma might take away from the banana. besides, dunkelweizens aren't supposed to have any aroma hops.

 

[scinerd3000]

just got back from vacation and im glad to see you really did update the recipe. How sweet does this usually finish? The oats will be interesting and i picture a very bodily beer. An odd way to put it but the "thickness" is almost palatable. Post a pic when you finally pour it into a glass....looks promising

 

[MikeRLynch]

wow. room temp water, eh? and still got good efficiency...hmm...

158-150...it'll probably finish pretty high.

mike, have you brewed yet or are you planning?

Alright, just pitched the yeast and I'm in the process of cleaning up.

I did a 3 gallon batch due to financial constraints

3.5 lbs Wheat malt
2.5 lbs Munich
2.5 oz crystal 60
2.5 oz cara pils
2.5 oz chocolate
.5 lbs flaked oats

.5 oz Kent Goldings @ 60 min
.5 oz Kent Goldings @ 5 min

Mashed at 154 for 60 min with 2 gallons
Batch sparged at 180 with 2 gallons

Pre Boil: 3.5 gallons
Post Boil: 3 gallons

OG: 1.050

Yeast: WLP300 (vial only)

Ambient temp in my closet is 70, hopefully the ferment won't take it over 73. What do you think Deathbrewer? Looking alright?

 

[DeathBrewer]

looks perfect! mine will be bottled next weekend!

 

[Brewinator]

So I've been struggling to keep temps down in the house for months, and it finally gets cool, and I now I find this recipe?

I will definitely try this when it warms up in hop-planting season.

I wonder if some victory malt would be in order to make banana-nut bread ale?

 

[DeathBrewer]

good idea. nutty will be ny next step, depending on how this tastes.

 

[MikeRLynch]

When I was getting my supplies for this batch, the LHBS owner told me about his "accidental" banana nut bread ale. He made a nut brown with some english liquid yeast. In putting it into his basement he accidentally knocked into his thermostat. It ended up at 85. He didn't know about it for a week until he went down to check on it. He figured he ruined it, but one of his friends tried it and said "wow! I make a banana nut bread that's just like this!"

Happy mistakes

 

[MikeRLynch]

Holy elephant farts batman!

This thing smells like a carton of rotten eggs. I've never had so much sulpher with a hefe yeast before, but then again i've never used whitelabs before. This normal?

EDIT= Found the answer in another thread. Thanks HBT!

 

[ApolloSpeed]

Holy elephant farts batman!

This thing smells like a carton of rotten eggs. I've never had so much sulpher with a hefe yeast before, but then again i've never used whitelabs before. This normal?

EDIT= Found the answer in another thread. Thanks HBT!

I made a german hefe with wlp300.....and I had the same problem. A horrendous smell! it was ridiculous! Stunk up the whole house for about 3 days just coming from the airlock. It even made the airlock water turn tan in color.

I used 3068 for this batch, and it does smell a little bit sulfury....but not even remotely as bad as wlp300......

 

[scinerd3000]

i deffinitly wanna do a bottle swap when i get around to doing my concoction

 

[DeathBrewer]

cool.

as for the funk, i've had that with various yeasts, but this last time fermenting the bba, it was actually a pleasant banana the whole time!

 

[ApolloSpeed]

cool.

as for the funk, i've had that with various yeasts, but this last time fermenting the bba, it was actually a pleasant banana the whole time!

mine hasn't really smelled very bananaish.... I'm at day 5 in the fermenter.....and I took a small sample to taste, I really couldn't tell much banana if any at all. If anything it might have been slightly on the bitter side.

 

[DeathBrewer]

*slaps your hand* don't take samples at 5 days...leave it covered!

it'll be fine.

 

[ApolloSpeed]

i did leave it covered..... I have a valve on my carboy that I can take a sample from without opening it.

btw....How many days should I leave it on the cake?

 

[DeathBrewer]

i'm leaving mine for 3 weeks and then straight to bottles. which means i bottle this weekend along with my SMaSH! yay!

i think i'll taste both tonight to make sure they weren't part of my bad water phase...if i'm going to send them out, they have to be good!

 

[ApolloSpeed]

send'em where?

 

[DeathBrewer]

everywhere. this is a batch intended to send to a few people i missed on swaps, family i've been promising to send brew to, people at work, holidays, etc.

 

[ApolloSpeed]

its been 11 days in the fermenter.....should I think about bottling around say, day 14?

 

[DeathBrewer]

I'm at day 21. probably going to bottle this week.

 

[ApolloSpeed]

but do you think it will be pretty tasty if I bottle around Day 14?

I'm wanting to fire up some more batches

 

[DeathBrewer]

sure. you just may need to give it more time in the bottles and you will have more trub in the bottles. no biggee.

 

[MikeRLynch]

Reviving this thread from the dead. My beer is bottled and carbed.

The stats:
- Started 12/6/08 OG 1.050. Bottled 1/25/09 (!) FG 1.013
- Too much trub got in the fermenter, had a hard time starting. Once it did though, it was done within 5 days.
- Got lazy and left it alone. Left it in primary almost 2 months. Trub was well compacted, but feared lysis of the yeast. Primed with nottingham and bottle conditioned for two weeks. Over carbed.

The verdict:

Pours very cloudy with a nice dark brown color, light doesn't travel through this one. The head was nice but dissipated quickly. The carbonation level is higher than I wanted it, it's actually quite spritzy.

Aroma is of subtle banana, some of that caramel sweetness comes through a bit. A little spice, but not much. No hop aroma to speak of.

A very sweet first sip, with a fair amount of tang from the wheat. The banana and toasted malts combined with the caramel is causing a strange flavor mix. Notes of brown sugar, some molasses, some tropical fruit, (banana mostly). It makes me think of belgians, but not any belgian I've had before. The finish is dry for such a wheat heavy beer, with a bit of bitterness playing with the wheat tang. Honestly I'd wonder if lower carbonation would make this beer too heavy and sweet. The carbonic acid is cutting through some of that sweetness. There is a tangy sweetness left on the palatte, but it goes away quickly.

I'm not sure what lysis tastes like, but I'm tempted to try this beer again and actually rack it on time to see what difference it makes. I've heard that autolysis can't occur for at least a month or two, so I think I was pushing it with this one. All in all, not a terrible beer (no infections or process flaws that I can detect, other than leaving it in primary too long). Unfortunately, not anywhere near a banana bread beer. I recently had an english ale (not hefe) that called itself a banana bread ale, and while it was certainly true to it's name, I could only have one. Interesting experiment, but I think I'll stick to the english styles for a while

 

[xxdcmast]

Ok so does anyone have an extract version of this recipe for us new brewers not AG yet?

 

[DeathBrewer]

Not really...wouldn't quite work. You could do partial mash, tho. Check out the link in my sig and read the thread. There's a PM recipe in there, too.

Reviving this thread from the dead. My beer is bottled and carbed.

The stats:
- Started 12/6/08 OG 1.050. Bottled 1/25/09 (!) FG 1.013
- Too much trub got in the fermenter, had a hard time starting. Once it did though, it was done within 5 days.
- Got lazy and left it alone. Left it in primary almost 2 months. Trub was well compacted, but feared lysis of the yeast. Primed with nottingham and bottle conditioned for two weeks. Over carbed.

The verdict:

Pours very cloudy with a nice dark brown color, light doesn't travel through this one. The head was nice but dissipated quickly. The carbonation level is higher than I wanted it, it's actually quite spritzy.

Aroma is of subtle banana, some of that caramel sweetness comes through a bit. A little spice, but not much. No hop aroma to speak of.

A very sweet first sip, with a fair amount of tang from the wheat. The banana and toasted malts combined with the caramel is causing a strange flavor mix. Notes of brown sugar, some molasses, some tropical fruit, (banana mostly). It makes me think of belgians, but not any belgian I've had before. The finish is dry for such a wheat heavy beer, with a bit of bitterness playing with the wheat tang. Honestly I'd wonder if lower carbonation would make this beer too heavy and sweet. The carbonic acid is cutting through some of that sweetness. There is a tangy sweetness left on the palatte, but it goes away quickly.

I'm not sure what lysis tastes like, but I'm tempted to try this beer again and actually rack it on time to see what difference it makes. I've heard that autolysis can't occur for at least a month or two, so I think I was pushing it with this one. All in all, not a terrible beer (no infections or process flaws that I can detect, other than leaving it in primary too long). Unfortunately, not anywhere near a banana bread beer. I recently had an english ale (not hefe) that called itself a banana bread ale, and while it was certainly true to it's name, I could only have one. Interesting experiment, but I think I'll stick to the english styles for a while

Sounds like it came up a little dry and the "breadiness" didn't come through. How long was it in primary? Honestly, I HIGHLY doubt that autolysis occurred.

Unfortunately, the batch that I made for this thread was one of the last of my water problems, so it went down the drain. I'll have to make another soon.

 

[eschatz]

I've been thinking about brewing this for a great fall beer....


BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!