Going bananas

Coolcanuck · Nov 21, 2016

I'm currently in the process of making a banana wine and it's currently in a secondary fermentation, I'm not sure what a contamination looks like in secondary, so I just wanted an opinion if it was a contamination or not. I smelled the top of the airlock and it smells fine to me but what do I know lol any way I'll post a picture of the lair on top of the sediment. I forgot to mention it's been in secondary for about two weeks.

Coolcanuck · Nov 22, 2016

ten80 · Nov 22, 2016

Contamination usually floats on top of the beer or wort and looks like a scum. What you are seeing is likely banana pectins and other material precipitating out of solution over time. Bananas leave a lot of "mush" on the bottom of a fermenter as they ferment.

Coolcanuck · Nov 22, 2016

Thanks much ten80, I did notice slot of fruit looking pulp boiling when I put it into the secondary, that is what I assumed I just haven't seen so much from my blueberry wine.

plowboy25127 · Nov 22, 2016

Umm when I did a banana wine View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1479863577.912510.jpg

Coolcanuck · Nov 23, 2016

Wow that's crazy, how many pounds of bananas did you use and you must of lost a lot of wine on the first racking, what did you use to top it off again when you racked it?

plowboy25127 · Nov 23, 2016

I wanna say I used about 28 lbs lol . I always make a lil extra gallon or so for topping up

Coolcanuck · Nov 23, 2016

Wow that's a lot of bananas, did you use raisins at all or any other type of fruits? What yeast did you use?

plowboy25127 · Nov 23, 2016

i used just bananas on the one. i used some left over bananas for a strawberry banana that was good. that time i used lalvin ec-1118 it turned out really good.

Coolcanuck · Nov 23, 2016

How long are you planning on letting this age a year or two?

LoneTreeFarms · Nov 23, 2016

mine is about a year and a half and seems still hot to me. I don't have my notes on me so I can't tell you the SG but it must have been high.

Coolcanuck · Nov 23, 2016

Does the banana flavour really come through in yours after a year and a half?

LoneTreeFarms · Nov 23, 2016

oh yeah!

plowboy25127 · Nov 23, 2016

I let it go a year before I got in to it after two it was really good and never made it to three years lol

Coolcanuck · Nov 23, 2016

I made mine with the banana peels and the fruit themselves I made sure to buy the organic kind of banana and washed them very well, I also used raisins for body

plowboy25127 · Nov 23, 2016

I didn't use any peels in mine I thought the peels would of added off flavors

ten80 · Nov 25, 2016

Banana peels are very high in amylase enzyme and help convert the starches to fermentable sugars if you do a mash as you would with grains. I did a beer with 40 lbs of whole, chopped organic bananas and the result was very flavorful.