Bananawizen?

[GreaseGasGlory]

Hey new guy here. Great site. I have brewed a dozen times or so, all malt extract. On a recent trip to the bay area I stopped at an awesome German restaurant and a Bananawizen. A mixed beer drink with banana nectar. I want to try to make my own version pre mixed in the bottle and am looking for some advice..... I'm going to start with a basic hef/witbier recipe and was wondering how adding things at boil/fermentation/bottling would change things. I'm thinking whole/mashed bananas, banana extract, maybe something like 99 bananas or....? I'm all about experimenting but I don't want to end up with boxes of crappy banana beer. Anyone have any experience or thoughts? Thanks

 

[jkovac]

I haven't tried making banana beer but I've made banana ice cream, and I learned a few things. One thing is that a lot of people who have tried it say that most banana extract sucks, and not just the artificial kind, but also the expensive, real, organic kind. I did not try extract myself for the ice cream since I'd seen so many negative reviews of it.

For real bananas, it is best if you use ones that have a lot of little brown dots on them, like they are starting to go bad. They are really ripe and you'll get a stronger, sweeter flavor from them.

 

[emyers]

I've fermented bananas before....yucky. You want some go with some traditional German heffe yeast like wlp300 for the banana esters. I wouldn't see adding banana nectar and bottling going well, the sugars would mostly ferment out. Kegging would work much better if you wanted it pre mixed. I'd say just make a batch of heffe with wlp300 and enjoy it plain or mixed.

 

[MoveMaine]

Hey Grease,

I just started my first Bavarian Hefeweizen and before I started I was looking on information for the same thing.

Here's what I came up with. In Germany, they mix the beer on the spot (post brew) with the banana juice.
Something like:

Bavarian Hefeweizens naturally have banana, clove and bubble gum esters. You can accentuate the banana flavor by fermenting at the top range of the yeast recommended temp. Ferment at the lower range, and the clove/bubblegum will be accentuated.

I saw another thread where a guy added 4-6 bananas in the primary and another 4-6 in the secondary. He reported the beer was a little thin, but had a lot of banana flavor. So less like a hefeweizen and more like a lager with banana (in appearance, etc.).

 

[MoveMaine]

Here's a link to the other thread: www.homebrewtalk.com/f75/bananaweizen-260397/