Banana Wine

[smAllGrain]

Quick question, I apologize if this has been answered. Could you use sun-maid raisins & not golden raisins? Have everything else on hand. Thanks

 

[johnnync]

Quick question, I apologize if this has been answered. Could you use sun-maid raisins & not golden raisins? Have everything else on hand. Thanks

I don't see why not, may make it a little darker. That being said, I think I will substitute a can of white grape juice and adjust the sugar next time and skip the raisins.

 

[Yooper]

If you're using the sunmaid raisins, I'd add them earlier to the wine than when scheduled. They are heavily sulfited and may have enough sulfite to inhibit fermentation of them.

 

[smAllGrain]

If you're using the sunmaid raisins, I'd add them earlier to the wine than when scheduled. They are heavily sulfited and may have enough sulfite to inhibit fermentation of them.

How early would u suggest?

 

[Yooper]

How early would u suggest?

Maybe right away, or in the first few days anyway.

 

[smAllGrain]

Perfect!! Thanks for the input

 

[thadeus_d3]

This is the best and cheapest wine I've ever made. 2 years and it's amazing. Thanks for the recipe.

 

[wildman128]

I made this 6 months ago and forgot about it. Ive been real busy. Anyway, I have left the raisins in for this whole time will that be an issue. I am going to transfer it over tonight.

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

I made mine a year ago and just bottled it this past weekend still a little hot tasting but I'm gonna let it sit and cellar for another six months before I crack the first bottle. But the taste I had this weekend was good.

 

[Homercidal]

Just started 4 gallons of it. I don't need 4 gallons of banana wine, but that's how many bananas were on sale and I want to practice winemaking, so...

This time I added the requisite additions to help the flavor. People just stare at me when I tell them I'm making banana wine. Then their jaws hit the floor when I tell them it takes 2 years before it's ready to drink! LOL!

 

[Homercidal]

Just started 4 gallons of it. I don't need 4 gallons of banana wine, but that's how many bananas were on sale and I want to practice winemaking, so...

This time I added the requisite additions to help the flavor. People just stare at me when I tell them I'm making banana wine. Then their jaws hit the floor when I tell them it takes 2 years before it's ready to drink! LOL!

 

[TheClairvoyant138]

Where am I supposed to find 5'ish pounds of golden raisins without preservatives... oh yea thats what a dehydrator is for




Not Shown,

All 18 pounds of grapes!

 

[thadeus_d3]

Made this wine again this past weekend. I forgot how wonderful the house smells when the bananas are in the pot. It'll be tough to wait another 2 years for it to mature.

 

[Homercidal]

Ugh. I forgot to add my raisins during the primary ferment. I haven't even looked at this since I checked the yeast to see if it got going. Probably need to sneak this into a secondary this weekend and see if I can coax the yeast to get going with a few raisins to start with then add more as it gets going.

 

[1Mainebrew]

I just made my first batch of this stuff. I made a 3 gallon batch with the raisens in the primary. I aimed a little low for the OG at 1.080 as I am planning on making this sparkling in time. I will post pictures of my riddling and degorging etc.

 

[1Mainebrew]

Hopefully these are oriented right side up... I forgot to take a picture of it fermenting with the raisins in primary. Once I move on to bottling, riddling and dégorging it should get kinda fun! I will be in uncharted waters in my fermenting experiences.

 

[1Mainebrew]

Another pic

 

[1Mainebrew]

All well, reverse order.

 

[Homercidal]

Racked mine to secondary. It's kind of late, but better late than never! The primary had a ton of gunk floating and sunken in the primary. Almost looked like tapioca globs. A lot of it got into the secondary, but it should settle out nicely (I hope).

I only added about 1/4 -1/3 the amount of raisins. I hope to get the yeast going on them before adding more.

 

[SudsyPaul]

Finally made this, earlier this week. It's fermenting like MAD! I've waded through some of the pages, but didn't find a good source of golden raisins without sulphites or preservatives. I don't own a dehydrator, so I'm assuming they're something I can get at some hippy store?

Based on all the reviews on here, I'm also going to make a batch of this every 6 months until it's ready. Bananas are cheap, I tend to just take the last rejects from our bunches that we buy (what we would toss out), so I consider it a nearly-free recipe

 

[Homercidal]

I think golden raisins always have preservatives because they would turn color if they didn't. Plain raisins are already dark, so there is no need for it.

And I'm happy to report that my raisins seem to be fermenting away, so I plan to add more soon. My wine looked like dirty dish water after I racked it and degassed it, but the next day it was settled nicely and looks pretty now.

 

[SudsyPaul]

So the preservatives don't hurt the end product? I'll see if I can get them from a health food store, will probably have the least amount of additional junk on them - but I doubt I can find natural raisins in my lame city.

 

[SudsyPaul]

So I just poured 2gal into 1gal jugs, and had to top up with tap water... and I noticed this grossness floating on the top of the jugs (didn't pay attention to the carboy). If it helps put things in perspective, 2 gal of wine was in a 3gal jug for 10 days (life got busy at 7 days)

 

[mgonbrewlab]

I started this about 8 weeks ago. I opted for lighter bodied wine with 3 lbs of bananas, 1 lb of raisins, and 2 lbs of sugar. When I first racked I had all sorts of crud, foam, and in one jug I accumulated almost 6 inches of silt less than 5 days after racking to secondary. I threw some of my overflow into mason jars and fridged them to clear faster. Amazing how the color changes on this as it clears, and the little bit I tried on the still slightly cloudy sample was pretty great - not what I expected at all. No way will this last two years post bottling.

 

[thadeus_d3]

Tasted a 5 month old sample of my 3rd batch and it's incredible. It tastes much better than previous batches already and the older batches are 2+ years old. The only difference is that I washed the bananas beforehand (which I also did on my 2nd batch), halved the raisins and used Montrachet yeast instead of Red Star Champagne. This seems to be a winning combination for me, so I'm going to do this going forward.

 

[1Mainebrew]

So I tried a bottle before riddling and it is delish! Now I'm riddling the rest and will dègorge in a few weeks/months and will post about that adventure. Yooper, thanks gain for posting this one! I'm looking forward to a 5 gallon sparkling batch soon

 

[1Mainebrew]

The riddling

 

[Rocky71]

Made my batch in March of 2013. Going to back-sweeten today and bottle in a few days. still tastes pretty boozy after over two years but back-sweetening should help make that less noticeable. Warms the throat. I've had it in carboys transferring every so many months. Gave it a couple cinnamon sticks and a clove about 3 months ago. I'm looking for a sweet banana wine that can be used for drinking and banana foster.

 

[Ike]

OK, heading to the store to buy the bananas. But first...

And for the record, I DID read the entire thread! I figure if I'm investing two years, I better spend an hour reading first...


Here's my question: @Yooper or anyone else want to provide detail on the daily "stirring" and whether to be shaking/swirling the bottle or actually using a aeration whip? I did the swirling method for my BOMM and it seemed to work OK but I have a brand new whip that's just begging to be put into service.

Thanks!

 

[Yooper]

OK, heading to the store to buy the bananas. But first...

And for the record, I DID read the entire thread! I figure if I'm investing two years, I better spend an hour reading first...


Here's my question: @Yooper or anyone else want to provide detail on the daily "stirring" and whether to be shaking/swirling the bottle or actually using a aeration whip? I did the swirling method for my BOMM and it seemed to work OK but I have a brand new whip that's just begging to be put into service.

Thanks!

You can just stir with a long handled sanitized spoon- a whip may be overkill (but won't hurt).