Banana Wine

[raketemensch]

I had made a 2-gallon experimental banana batch about a month ago, which I made without peels and just blending the peeled brown bananas with some tepid water. I pitched some EC-1118 and 5 pounds of sugar and let it go.

It's pretty good, and peaked at 7.4%ABV. I wasn't going for anything full-on, I just had an empty old Mr. Beer fermenter, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I'm going to give this recipe a shot, minus the raisins, mainly because raisins are evil, foul things that should be banned from the Earth.

The other change that I'm going to try is using WLP300 hefeweizen yeast, the one with the banana esters. I've got a vial of it coming tomorrow.

The big win here, though, was that the first store I stopped at wanted 79cents/pound for bananas, so I continued on to Stop and Shop, where they were 49cents/pound. The produce guy was stocking bananas, so just for the heck of it I asked him what they do with them when they brown up, and he directed me to a back hallway I'd never seen, where they had already-browned bananas for something like 10-15cents/lb. I loaded up on enough to do a 5-gallon ferment.

The one thing that seems odd to me is bringing it to a boil -- it seems like taking it above 140 might kill off any of the natural enzymes from the bananas that would help you with conversion?

 

[Ike]

Really thinking about trying this out this week. Biggest decision is whether I should do a 5G or 1G batch. I'd hate to do a 1 gallon and find out that it's delicious in two years and only have a few bottles ready - but I'm also hesitant to tie up a 5g carboy for that long. So many decisions!

My very humble suggestion: base the size of your primary on your available secondary containers.

Example: if you start in a one gallon bottle, when you start racking off the lees and to and from the raisins, you'll end up having to top off a lot, either with water or another wine. Further example: what I did was start with about a 3 gallon batch. At the first rack (at 7 days) I was able to rack into two one gallon bottles, and a spare 1000ml bottle. My hope is that oncce I've racked off the raisins, I'll be able to use the 1000ml bottle to top off the two one gallon bottles, so I won't have to top off with wine or water.

 

[Ike]

Hey everybody: with regard to the concerns that have been posted about the sulfur used to treat the white raisins interfering with the yeast:

Any reason I can just use green grapes?


...I was going to try washing them in star-san and dehydrating them to make my own sulfite-free grapes, but then didn't quite see a reason to go through the effort of taking all the water OUT, just to have them soak up a bunch of my wine.

Thanks;

Ike

 

[Zelmor]

Would worry more about the vegetabloe oils they coat raisins with so they wouldn't stick. My 5 liter batch went rancid due to the raisins last year. And oils you cannot wash off with water.

I would just go with crushed grapes or grape juice, depending which one you have access to.

 

[lowrider_rt2000]

So after really cleaning my floors I decided to put this into a carboy haha. Fast forward to a week ago. It was time to add raisins. I did a sample taste and I think NASA wants some to launch the space shuttle next time. I've had moonshine not as hot as this but yet this was sweet and very banana tasting. I decided to add the raisons anyways. The 1st 2 days the raisons were in had no action. The 3rd day was well let's say, beyond active. Thank god I put the carboy in a 6gal bucket! My airlock is filled with banana fuel. This is bubbling like crazy! Is this normal for soooo much action?

View attachment 1450012627630.jpg

 

[Tsuyako]

My banana wine with 1/2 white 1/2 brown sugar. Tastes like rocket fuel when I racked it last weekend but I can it's going to be delicious.

View attachment 1450400707612.jpg

 

[roberto188]

I made this about a year ago with a slight variation on Jack's Website to use orange and lemon zests. As most people said, it was like rocket fuel when done. But once back-sweetened ever so slightly, and aged 6 months+ it was a buttery smooth white with hints of banana. Delicious! Also, I had used Montrachet yeast. I have found Montrachet and Cote-de-Blanc seem to maintain nice fruit flavors. I've also found that Champagne yeast doesn't yield so much fruit flavor.

 

[roberto188]

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.

+1 on the Montrachet yeast. Great flavor.

 

[beer_blogger]

I brewed this up in November 2015 and followed the instructions other than excluding the raisins and used Cote De Blancs yeast Its amazing to see what started out as carpet cleaner water turn into a brilliantly clear golden batch of deliciousness! I pulled a few samples after primary was finished and like many of the others on here, found that it tasted somewhat sweet, but very hot with alcohol and the banana flavor made its presence felt in the aftertaste. I'm pumped to taste this in a year or 2 after it mellows out. And I've got to keep this one brewing constantly, its a definite keeper in the rotation!

 

[eigua]

I'm curious to know how much sugar actually comes out of the bananas when boiled like a tea as directed by this recipe. Has anyone done a gravity reading before adding the sugar? Or is it mainly just to pick up some banana flavor?

I am currently fermenting a 2 gallon batch of a very simple banana wine, but I used a very different process. My goal was to make as banana-y a wine as I possibly could. I wanted as much of the liquid as possible to come from the bananas and not added water. I ended up using 6.5ish lbs of bananas per gallon, blended it with a stick blender, held it at various mashing temperatures for a total of about 2 hours (probably didn't help convert starches since I didn't have peel in it, but I thought I might as well try), boiled it, cooled it, filtered and squeezed it as best I could (VERY time consuming and difficult, squeezing the juice from the banana fiber!), then boiling again, and finally pitching. The ~13 lbs of bananas yielded exactly 1 gallon of puree, and after all was said and done, I added probably just over 1 gallon of water for the 2g batch since I was able to get so much water out of the bananas themselves. (I squeezed the fiber so dry it was like Play Doh.)

In addition to the bananas and water, I added 4.5 lbs of sugar to bring the OG to 1.120/1.130 (2 different 1 gallon jugs). I also used some amylase enzyme (just for good measure), Fermax yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme, but I did not add any raisins, tannin, acid blend, etc. Yeast is Cote des blancs.

I do expect that the OG was thrown off some by the fine banana fiber pulp still present in the wine, so I'm not really expecting to get the predicted 17-19% ABV (though, if there really is enough sugar to go that high, the CDB yeast would likely die off before that and leave a sweet wine, which would be fine by me.)

As I said, this was a terribly difficult, messy, and time consuming process, but I'm hoping it will be super banana flavored -- I'm imagining almost a slightly syrupy consistency with heavy banana flavor, sweet, and alcoholic like a port. (I may fortify with brandy or something to bump up the ABV in the end if it comes out well but the yeast dies out.) If, on the other hand, it doesn't come out like I'm imagining, it would sure be a heck of a lot easier to make it the tea bag way instead with less banana.

One other side effect of the massive amount of banana in the recipe is that my jugs have overflowed 4 times already (3 for one jug, 1 for the other) filling up the airlock and spilling over during fermentation due to the fine banana fiber getting pushed to the top of the jug and causing a bubble ladder to form.

 

[raketemensch]

Definitely let us know how this comes out, I'm very interested.

I did my first batch with no peels and a blender, and since then I've just been slicing them up (very brown) with the peels on and mashing them at 150F for a couple of hours. I'm not getting much conversion, even with the peels and amylase.

You've got me thinking of doing a hybrid, though -- peeling and blending, then throwing the peels in while mashing, and removing them when fermenting. My current experiment (probably overdue for tasting) has peels and fruit in the fermenter. It's probably time for a full liquid enzymes attempt.

I really need to try all of this with a BIAB.

 

[ten80]

I do expect that the OG was thrown off some by the fine banana fiber pulp still present in the wine...)

Suspended solids (plant fiber in this case) do not affect the specific gravity reading other than causing the hydrometer to move verrrry slowly and take a while to equilibrate at the true reading. Only dissolved substances (sugars, dextrins, etc) will cause a change in hydrometer reading.

Think of it this way: you won't float higher in a hot tub full of people (suspended solids) but you will float higher if a big bag of salt is added (dissolved solids).

 

[ten80]

I did my first batch with no peels and a blender, and since then I've just been slicing them up (very brown) with the peels on and mashing them at 150F for a couple of hours. I'm not getting much conversion, even with the peels and amylase.

...

I really need to try all of this with a BIAB.

I also saw poor conversion when mashing just 40 lbs of super-ripe bananas. The resulting 8-9 gallons of wort had a gravity around 1.012, so we're looking at about 5 gravity points per pound of bananas per gallon. That's VERY low compared to base malt which has ~35 PPG.

Here are some calculations for banana contribution to wort sugars:

1. SUGARS: Google says that the average banana weighs 118g and contains 14g (8.4%) sugar. Assuming that no starch conversion occurs, a pound of bananas will provide only 53 grams of sugar, giving it a potential of 12 PPG based on sugar (sucrose) having 46 ppg.

2. SUGARS + STARCHES. The total potential extract of bananas should include the contributions of sugars and starches because the amylase enzymes present in bananas will convert starches to sugars. A typical 118g banana contains 27g of carbohydrates, of which 3.1g is fiber (non convertible), so that gives 23.9g of starch + sugars or 20.3% by weight. Therefore, a pound of bananas contains 92g of fermentables assuming that all starches are converted. This equals a potential of 21 PPG or 1.021.

So what this means is that I had no starch conversion or some starch conversion and incomplete sugar extraction during my banana mash.

I ended up boiling my bananas for 15 minutes in a BIAB bag to help break down the starches, but don't think I took a gravity reading following the boiling, which would have been very interesting to know! I then I added several pounds of brown liquid malt extract to bring the gravity to 1.060 for my Spiced Banana Brown beer.

 

[eigua]

Definitely let us know how this comes out, I'm very interested.

Will do!

You've got me thinking of doing a hybrid, though -- peeling and blending, then throwing the peels in while mashing, and removing them when fermenting. My current experiment (probably overdue for tasting) has peels and fruit in the fermenter. It's probably time for a full liquid enzymes attempt.

I really need to try all of this with a BIAB.

I was also considering adding the peels to my blended mush, but decided against it since they weren't organic bananas. I can't remember if I added any amylase enzyme before doing the mash... I think I may have added some the night before as I did all this over several days. Regardless, from my reading about starch conversion, the process can sometimes take a very long time as in the case of rice which doesn't seem to be able to be converted in a 1-2 hour timespan like grains can. I wonder if bananas are similar.

I was also wondering if a BIAB would be better at filtering the banana solids than the paint straining bags I used.

Suspended solids (plant fiber in this case) do not affect the specific gravity reading other than causing the hydrometer to move verrrry slowly and take a while to equilibrate at the true reading. Only dissolved substances (sugars, dextrins, etc) will cause a change in hydrometer reading.

Oh, thanks for that info! I assumed it would throw it off based on my own tests with some failed beers that ended up forming a huge amount of solid clumps during the boil or had an excess of suspended grain particles. The SG in those was drastically affected before and after the particle formation. I guess once the solids make up a certain percentage of the volume, the hydrometer won't ever be able to come to equilibrium so my reading is just invalid.

I also saw poor conversion when mashing just 40 lbs of super-ripe bananas. The resulting 8-9 gallons of wort had a gravity around 1.012, so we're looking at about 5 gravity points per pound of bananas per gallon. That's VERY low compared to base malt which has ~35 PPG.

Google says that the average banana weighs 118g and contains 14g (8.4%) sugar. Given that, a pound of bananas contains only 53 grams of sugar, giving it a potential of 12 PPG based on sugar (sucrose) having 46 ppg. This means that my banana mash was only 40-50% efficient, at maximum.

This is quite interesting. When I pureed 1 gallon of bananas, I used Google's information to calculate how much sugar should be contained so I could then add just enough sucrose to hit my 1.112 target. It says 1 cup of mashed bananas contains 28g of sugar. I calculated my gallon should contain 448g of sugar which was pretty close to what just 1 lb of sucrose has. I then added an amount of sucrose based on that to hit my target using this brewing calculator (I think it was about 4.5 lbs additional sugar). After it was heated and cooled, the SG was dead on target, which would lead me to believe I got 0% additional conversion of starches vs the sugar content reported by Google.

I added several pounds of brown liquid malt extract to bring the gravity to 1.060 for my Banana Brown beer.

Sounds tasty!

 

[raketemensch]

Think of it this way: you won't float higher in a hot tub full of people (suspended solids) but you will float higher if a big bag of salt is added (dissolved solids).

I think this calls for an experiment.

 

[Yooper]

I also saw poor conversion when mashing just 40 lbs of super-ripe bananas. The resulting 8-9 gallons of wort had a gravity around 1.012, so we're looking at about 5 gravity points per pound of bananas per gallon. That's VERY low compared to base malt which has ~35 PPG.

Google says that the average banana weighs 118g and contains 14g (8.4%) sugar. Given that, a pound of bananas contains only 53 grams of sugar, giving it a potential of 12 PPG based on sugar (sucrose) having 46 ppg. This means that my banana mash was only 40-50% efficient, at maximum.

I ended up boiling my bananas for 15 minutes in a BIAB bag to help break down the starches, but don't think I took a gravity reading following the boiling. I then I added several pounds of brown liquid malt extract to bring the gravity to 1.060 for my Banana Brown beer.

What do you mean about "poor conversion"? The bananas don't convert, you just ferment the sugars present in them, along with the sugar (the bulk of the fermentables). The bananas are for flavor, the sugar is for the alcohol.

 

[ten80]

What do you mean about "poor conversion"? The bananas don't convert, you just ferment the sugars present in them, along with the sugar (the bulk of the fermentables). The bananas are for flavor, the sugar is for the alcohol.

But bananas do convert! See my revised calculations in my previous post which take into account the potential contribution of converted starches plus sugars (22ppg).

Unripe bananas contain starches that are converted to sugars by amylase enzymes in the banana and especially the peel, and the activity increases as the bananas ripen. The breakdown of starches is why bananas become softer as they ripen. This is why an unripe banana tastes starchy and a ripe banana tastes sweet. Bananas can even be used to help convert other starches and amylase enzyme can be isolated from bananas. See these "light readings":
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1981.tb04183.x/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1981.tb04183.x/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+14+May+from+10-12+BST+for+monthly+maintenance
http://www.ijcmas.com/vol-2-11/Shobhana%20A.%20Jadhav,%20et%20al.pdf

So, the take away messages from this are:
1. Bananas can self-convert, but don't have much sugar to contribute and may not convert efficiently.
2. Bananas will convert more completely when they are increasingly ripe and adding peels to the mash will help with conversion.
3. Bananas may help convert malts which have low diastatic power
4. Bananas WANT TO BECOME ALCOHOL

 

[Yooper]

I just use ripe to very ripe (overripe) bananas. It's easy, and it works.

 

[raketemensch]

I just use ripe to very ripe (overripe) bananas. It's easy, and it works.

And they're cheaper, too. Most large grocery stores have a hallway or something off the main floor where they have overripe fruit for sale at a discount. If you can't find it, just ask someone working in the produce section what they do with their overripe bananas. Some stores even bag them up in special bags with recipes for banana bread printed on them.

For this use case, you get your fruit cheaper AND you don't have to wait for the bananas to brown. Win-win.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

And they're cheaper, too. Most large grocery stores have a hallway or something off the main floor where they have overripe fruit for sale at a discount. If you can't find it, just ask someone working in the produce section what they do with their overripe bananas. Some stores even bag them up in special bags with recipes for banana bread printed on them.

For this use case, you get your fruit cheaper AND you don't have to wait for the bananas to brown. Win-win.

Add one more thing, soft brown bananas are much easier to deal with slicing them up, and they break down much quicker in the boiling/simmering water. Particularly when you're out of your mind like me and did 7 gallons with 20+lbs of bananas (the lady at the cash register probably thought I was crazy with 20lbs of bananas and a 10lb bag of sugar).

Started this recipe about 2 months ago and it cleared nicely, everyone whose tried it loves it (banana flavored white wine almost). Mad recognition to Yooper for this, it's going to be served at my wedding next year.

 

[G-Pong]

So, what happens if you skip the raisins completely?

 

[eigua]

So, what happens if you skip the raisins completely?

I skipped them in mine. I'll let you know in a year or two.

People often use raisins as a source of additional nutrients for the yeast. Not sure if that's necessary here or not. My pure banana wine has been bubbling away quite nicely for the last couple of weeks without them.

 

[Ike]

Don't get me started on raisins.

ALL OVER, I looked for non-sulfited yellow raisins. No luck. When I finally gave up and went to Whole Paycheck, I found their yellow raisins and asked the hipster in the produce section whether or not he could conclusively tell me they'd not been sulfited. With an air of superiority that still chaps my a*s months later, he throws his nose up and says "SIR, I can assure you NOTHING in this store is treated with any kind of sulfur."


Yeah right. Rack onto the raisins... NOTHING. Not a bubble.

When racking off the raisins (not a fleck of sediment, no yeast boot-knocking was happening in that jug) , a test sample was pretty nasty. Simultaneously hot and sweet, ugh. Dunno if the yeast petered out before the raisins, or if the raisins did the yeast in and then the sugar leeched out of the raisins.

Either way, I'm hoping a couple years in "time out" will do this wine some good... either way, I'm damn sure the DB at Whole Foods isn't getting any.

 

[G-Pong]

So if you don't use the raisins, could you bottle after the 2 months in secondary?

 

[Yooper]

So if you don't use the raisins, could you bottle after the 2 months in secondary?

Raisins give body and depth of flavor; you certainly don't need to use them.

You can bottle any time you want. If the wine has been clear for at least 60 days and is no longer dropping any sediment (lees) and hasn't dropped any in 60 days, it's fine to bottle no matter how long it's been finished.

If it's still dropping lees and not clear, it would still be ok to bottle if you don't mind lots of crud in the bottle.

 

[G-Pong]

Raisins give body and depth of flavor; you certainly don't need to use them.

You can bottle any time you want. If the wine has been clear for at least 60 days and is no longer dropping any sediment (lees) and hasn't dropped any in 60 days, it's fine to bottle no matter how long it's been finished.

If it's still dropping lees and not clear, it would still be ok to bottle if you don't mind lots of crud in the bottle.

Thanks! They are both (both gallons I made) really clear and I tried one with raisins, going to try this one without, see what happens!

 

[Shaddark]

Raisins give body and depth of flavor; you certainly don't need to use them.

You can bottle any time you want. If the wine has been clear for at least 60 days and is no longer dropping any sediment (lees) and hasn't dropped any in 60 days, it's fine to bottle no matter how long it's been finished.

If it's still dropping lees and not clear, it would still be ok to bottle if you don't mind lots of crud in the bottle.

Yooper, have you ever tried that Glyserine stuff that is supposed to give body and such to your wine. I was just reading about it yesterday, and wondering if you had tried it and if so, how did it go ?

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, have you ever tried that Glyserine stuff that is supposed to give body and such to your wine. I was just reading about it yesterday, and wondering if you had tried it and if so, how did it go ?

No, but lots of others do I'm sure. I'm more of a purist, and one of the reasons I make may own is to control the ingredients I put it in.

 

[cozmogeek]

I just got a box of brown bananas from work that were going to be thrown away.. I think I probably have enough for a 2 or 3 gallon batch of this. Wish me luck!

 

[cozmogeek]

This turned out to be 16lbs of bananas

Chopped up one gallon worth at a time (16 small bananas)

Cooking

So nasty looking!

After a few days..

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

give it time it'll clear nicely

 

[cozmogeek]

Oh I plan to. I bought another 3 gallon carboy just for this since it's going to be a long wait.

 

[cozmogeek]

let the waiting begin!

 

[Righteoustoad]

I use RO water for my beers, adjusted with gypsum, etc...does the banana wine require the same attention or am I good to go with straight RO?

 

[laserstone]

Newbie question here: can the wine spend less than 7 days in primary fermenter? Tomorrow is basically the only day I can start primary but I leave out of state on the 7th day.

 

[cozmogeek]

Newbie question here: can the wine spend less than 7 days in primary fermenter? Tomorrow is basically the only day I can start primary but I leave out of state on the 7th day.

I'd go for it. I moved mine after 8 days in the bucket. There's still quite a bit of banana chunks that made it into the carboy and it's still fermenting so I think you'd be fine.

 

[laserstone]

I'd go for it. I moved mine after 8 days in the bucket. There's still quite a bit of banana chunks that made it into the carboy and it's still fermenting so I think you'd be fine.

The alternative is waiting closer to two weeks (when I get back) to shift to secondary. Would you consider that a better option than a 6-day primary ferment?

 

[cozmogeek]

I've never made this before so I'm not really an expert. You could always freeze the bananas until you get back.

 

[MindenMan]

IMHO, I would wait until you return. It appears as though a lot of people want to be in a hurry to get to the finished product. I would reread Yooper's posts about her making banana wine; she has enough personal experience making fruit wines in the last 20 or so years to know what works and what doesn't work, and you will never read anything written by her that gives the "option" of taking shortcuts time wise. It's done when it's done and not before it's done do you mess with it.

 

[laserstone]

What's this wine supposed to smell like when it's in primary? Mine smells like a mix of banana and something acidic, and I'm wondering if I went wrong somewhere.
Edit: it tastes fine though, still very sweet and banana-y with a hint of alcohol.