Banana Wine

[jflongo]

Hi all, I'm new to winemaking and I just brewed up a one gallon batch of this last week. It's doing great so far. I used organic bananas to minimize pesticides on the peels and I let them ripen until they were just about black. They must have had a lot of sugar because the SG ended up being way too high when I added the recommended amount of sugar in the recipe. Oops. I wasn't intending to make Banana Rocket Fuel. I diluted it down with water and now I'm hoping I didn't also dilute out the banana flavor too much.

Here's a pic. I just racked it and it has a nice banana smell. The color is a cloudy beige at the moment. Looking forward to tasting it one day!

Do you know what your starting gravity was? It's normal for wines to start in the 1.090 range. Also, if you let this age for awhile, the alcohol bite should mellow out some.

 

[wooky]

Do you know what your starting gravity was? It's normal for wines to start in the 1.090 range. Also, if you let this age for awhile, the alcohol bite should mellow out some.

Yes, it was originally around 1.110-1.115, which was going to give me around 15% ABV. I didn't want it that strong so I diluted it down to 1.090. Hoping there's still plenty of banana flavor after adding the extra water. I've learned my lesson now to check the SG as I go instead of adding all the sugar at once.

 

[jflongo]

Yes, it was originally around 1.110-1.115, which was going to give me around 15% ABV. I didn't want it that strong so I diluted it down to 1.090. Hoping there's still plenty of banana flavor after adding the extra water. I've learned my lesson now to check the SG as I go instead of adding all the sugar at once.

I agree that is too high, so diluting it is fine. 1.090 is a good starting range.

 

[trbig]

I agree.. That was too high. Who wants to drink stuff 15%+ alcohol...




Now where's that sarcastic icon at?


I have some rice wine that I tested at 18% alcohol. I gave a buddy of mine a bottle of the rice wine and a bottle of my banana wine to try. He went home and stuck them in the freezer to chill, but forgot about them. When he remembered, he grabbed it and said the rice wine was slushy, but the banana wine wasn't at all. Not exactly scientific, but that sort of tells me the banana wine is higher...and it stil tastes great and getting better all the time.

 

[coleandrobin]

So I plan on making a 6 gal batch of this. Could I use 6lbs of frozen muscadines I have in my freezer instead of the golden raisins? And if I did this would I add them during the boil to pasteurize them?

 

[Yooper]

So I plan on making a 6 gal batch of this. Could I use 6lbs of frozen muscadines I have in my freezer instead of the golden raisins? And if I did this would I add them during the boil to pasteurize them?

The muscadines aren't anything like the raisins. The reason for the raisins is to build body and add some fermentables- the muscadines would be tart and acidic and not at all fit in with the recipe as written.

I'd skip the raisins if you don't want to use them, but not put muscadines in at all.

 

[coleandrobin]

Ok thanks. I've got no problem with raisins just thought I'd use what I had if it'd work.

 

[Leadgolem]

I agree.. That was too high. Who wants to drink stuff 15%+ alcohol...




Now where's that sarcastic icon at?


I have some rice wine that I tested at 18% alcohol. I gave a buddy of mine a bottle of the rice wine and a bottle of my banana wine to try. He went home and stuck them in the freezer to chill, but forgot about them. When he remembered, he grabbed it and said the rice wine was slushy, but the banana wine wasn't at all. Not exactly scientific, but that sort of tells me the banana wine is higher...and it stil tastes great and getting better all the time.

Maybe not as much as you'd think. Carbohydrates and sugars in solution also block crystallization. I use corn starch to make fudge sickles all the time. The starch keeps the ice crystals from becoming to large and ruining the texture.

 

[Atek]

Welp, I made me some amazing mud wine, I mean banana wine yesterday. Unfortunately I did not realize until after that I had accidentally picked up Distilled water for this instead of spring water. It is only 12 hours in after pitching but I see no signs of ferment yet. I'll keep an eye on it but wanted to seek some advice here.

 

[trbig]

I've seen a lot of recipes that call for distilled water.. the purest there is. It'll be fine.

Just 12 hrs? Patience, Grasshopper. If you're sure the mix wasn't too hot before you pitched the yeast, it'll be fine. When yeast are growing the colony and eating oxygen, you won't get much, if any, CO2 production through the air lock. If after 72 hrs, you still have nothing, then I'd start wondering.

So what recipe did you use for your "Mud wine"?

 

[Atek]

I've seen a lot of recipes that call for distilled water.. the purest there is. It'll be fine.

Just 12 hrs? Patience, Grasshopper. If you're sure the mix wasn't too hot before you pitched the yeast, it'll be fine. When yeast are growing the colony and eating oxygen, you won't get much, if any, CO2 production through the air lock. If after 72 hrs, you still have nothing, then I'd start wondering.

So what recipe did you use for your "Mud wine"?

I used this recipe here exactly, just thought mud wine was more fitting name given the starting color after making the banana liqueur. It has started now, I pulled the lid off for the daily stir and its definitely going. I have a leak somewhere, thinking at the bung as its not as tight as I'd like. No matter, it'll be moved to a carboy in 6 days now anyway. Thanks!! I'll post some pics of the (hopefully) lovely 5 gallon banana golden goodness.

 

[trbig]

I used this recipe here exactly, just thought mud wine was more fitting name given the starting color after making the banana liqueur. It has started now, I pulled the lid off for the daily stir and its definitely going. I have a leak somewhere, thinking at the bung as its not as tight as I'd like. No matter, it'll be moved to a carboy in 6 days now anyway. Thanks!! I'll post some pics of the (hopefully) lovely 5 gallon banana golden goodness.

I hope it turns out at least as good as my first batch did. Everybody has loved it, so I had to start two more 6 gallon batches a couple days ago. In right at two months, I went from mud to this...





Very tasty even at that point and I think it will get much better with age, if I can ever figure out how to make it quit disappearing so fast.

 

[jflongo]

I made mine Jan 16, 2014, it was muddy looking, racked into secondary Jan 24, 2014, still looked muddy for a long time. Racked into another carboy 02/25/2014, right now, it is so clear I can read through it. Haven't decided yet when I'm going to bottle it, I may let it age longer. I'll taste test it every week or two, and then decide. Cheers.

 

[BeeVomit]

Just bottled mine at the beginning of the week.. it's not perfectly clear but 90% settled. Flavour-wise its odd.. I added a couple of organic lemons (peel and all) to the batch, which are really standing out. I'm hoping the flavour settles and cooperates with the banana in time. Thinking of recombining the 4 gallons of nearly-clear stuff, adding a very little bit of spice and letting it mull quietly for another couple of weeks (always gotta take it easy on the spice!).

Looking forward to a banana-rum grog outcome, something my sailing family can appreciate.

 

[BeeVomit]

Now that I've found a use for all the banana and apple cast-offs of my rambunctious nephews, I've been stashing all the leavings in the freezer.. in the time it took to brew this one, I've nearly enough saved to do another. This time I'll just put a couple little limes in there instead I always prefer those, anyway.

 

[Gar]

Im wondering why use the peel? sorry if this has been answered i havent had time to read threw all of it

 

[BeeVomit]

Im wondering why use the peel? sorry if this has been answered i havent had time to read threw all of it

I didn't use the peel in mine and the banana flavour is not very strong. I'll be making another batch soon, this time with the peel. I don't know if there will be a huge difference, except maybe that it will be more bitter.

I also used apple and lemon in the batch, which took up some of the volume of fruit in the recipe. Though the bananas made up most of it overall, that might be why it isn't stronger than I thought it would be.

Anyway, I'll let the thread know my findings when the next one's done. I asked this question a while ago as well, and nobody answered. I hope you get one.

Cheers!

 

[BeeVomit]

Distilled water is preferred for diluting liquors because spring water or even finely filtered water contains minerals that can destroy liquor. Distilled water is pure, contains no minerals or chemicals.

 

[BeeVomit]

I didn't use the peel in mine and the banana flavour is not very strong. I'll be making another batch soon, this time with the peel. I don't know if there will be a huge difference, except maybe that it will be more bitter.

Cheers!

I'm thinking now that maybe more of the banana flavour is kept up in the peel.. ever dig an old banana peel out of your compost bin? Yeah, it's got some strength to it, even after the fruit is long gone.

I'm thinking to put a little spice in the wine I just did, let it ferment a little more with some more sugar (since I'm a "boozer" as my family puts it) and then bottle it up for a good while (a year or so?) until the spices mellow out. I was surprised that though I didn't really like the outcome of this brew, my buddy thought it was great. I guess I didn't mess up as much as I'd thought. He even listed the three main ingredients to me (bananas, apples, lemons) and said they each had a part in the overall taste. Banana first, then the lemon, a bit of apple, finished with a stronger banana as it made its way home.

While I hope the brew mellows to a more combined flavour, its cool to know each fruit made its unique mark, enough to tell what went in. I'm also fond of the corn that I added for more complex carbs. I think it made the brews flavour stronger, as well as more earthy overall. Might become a more common ingredient in my pom brews to come.

 

[coleandrobin]

More of the fruits essential oil is in the peel.

 

[ten80]

The peel also contains most of the amylase enzyme and will help convert the starches from the banana flesh if you do a mash. I mashed my chopped bananas with 2-row malt at 147 F for my banana-barley wine and had really good conversion efficiency, but the mash required constant stirring because the bananas formed some pretty thick gloop.

 

[timcadieux]

So that didn't go very well. I attempted to siphon off the raisins, I even had a muslin bag over the end but I just could not get it to work. I ended up racking by pouring the contents into another carboy using a funnel and muslin bag to filter. Is this recipe prone to oxidation the way a beer would be? Any way I can counter the effects, if any?

 

[BeeVomit]

So that didn't go very well. I attempted to siphon off the raisins, I even had a muslin bag over the end but I just could not get it to work. I ended up racking by pouring the contents into another carboy using a funnel and muslin bag to filter. Is this recipe prone to oxidation the way a beer would be? Any way I can counter the effects, if any?

When I know I'll have problems with small chunks of material, I'll use a well-sanitized cloth, pour the brew through into another container, let it settle, then siphon if I must. So basically, racking without getting rid of the sediment, then racking again in a few days.

My banana wine has settled well and all the flavours are starting to mellow into each other. My buddy still gives it his thumbs up, though I'm still waiting for a later date to give it my full approval. But, knowing my mistakes last time (like neglecting to add some peel!) I've started up another. This time only one lemon and the peel of one lime, no corn, no raisins.. But... I couldn't help but add a couple (tiny!) pieces of cinnamon stick and a few hunks of ginger root to spice it up a bit. Ginger's fine so long as you like the flavour, but you gotta be careful with your other spices. Doesn't take much to overpower a brew! and can take years to mellow out.

 

[Yooper]

So that didn't go very well. I attempted to siphon off the raisins, I even had a muslin bag over the end but I just could not get it to work. I ended up racking by pouring the contents into another carboy using a funnel and muslin bag to filter. Is this recipe prone to oxidation the way a beer would be? Any way I can counter the effects, if any?

While you can't "erase" oxidation (and it can ruin the wine), next time make sure you use campden tablets (sulfite) at racking time if you're going to have some oxygen pick up. I generally add them routinely, at every other racking, as it dissipates and I like to keep up a small preventative level in the wine at all times. Generally, the dosage is 1 crushed campden tablet (dissolved in a little boiling water or wine) per 1 gallon of wine.

How that works is that the sulfite will bind to the wine first, so oxygen can't, and then the sulfite will dissipate over time (weeks). It's routinely used like that by winemakers for just this purpose, but I don't think that pouring the wine like that would be protected although it would help.

 

[M4rotku]

Is it possible to use sulfite to prevent oxygenation if I am at the stage of adding the raisins? I don't want to add it and then have it prevent the restart of fermentation. However, I want to add it because I also have to strain a bunch of sediment out. I can't just rack off of the sediment because it refuses to settle at the very bottom and I would lose too much wine.

Sent from my C5155 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Yooper]

Is it possible to use sulfite to prevent oxygenation if I am at the stage of adding the raisins? I don't want to add it and then have it prevent the restart of fermentation. However, I want to add it because I also have to strain a bunch of sediment out. I can't just rack off of the sediment because it refuses to settle at the very bottom and I would lose too much wine.

Sent from my C5155 using Home Brew mobile app

Most raisins have sulfite in/on them already, just as most other dried fruits do, so I wouldn't add additional sulfites when adding the raisins.

Sulfites in the quantity someone would use in a wine won't harm wine yeast and all, and certainly not stop fermentation.

 

[collinsjames1988]

30 days till I have to rack it and add the raisins really starting to clear up

 

[Verratti]

Just started a 6 gallon batch monday. The first 2 days it smelled like banana peel but that smell changed fast into banana smell. I used bentonite at the beginning like with kits and used tea for tannin and lemon for acid blend. Its smelling better everyday.

 

[M4rotku]

Okay, so I racked off of the sediment and onto the raisins and there was so much sediment that I only retrieved slightly over half a gallon of wine. Granted, at this point in the recipe, I did not yet have the full gallon, since I am right now at the "fill with water to one gallon" step. I am wondering, however, since I had more sediment than I expected, if maybe I should only fill to 3/4 gallon instead of a full gallon. I just don't want to dilute it too much.

 

[Atek]

Okay, so I racked off of the sediment and onto the raisins and there was so much sediment that I only retrieved slightly over half a gallon of wine. Granted, at this point in the recipe, I did not yet have the full gallon, since I am right now at the "fill with water to one gallon" step. I am wondering, however, since I had more sediment than I expected, if maybe I should only fill to 3/4 gallon instead of a full gallon. I just don't want to dilute it too much.

I really recommend sourcing some bulk wine, or making some wine just for topping/blending. I have 3 gallons of Viognier that I plan on topping my banana wine with once I get to that point. I have found this to be a very nice topping wine, I'm sure others would suffice as well.