Help me plan a Bananas Foster wine

[Pendragon524]

So, as we all know, bananas foster is a dessert made from caramelized bananas, vanilla ice cream, brown sugar, butter, rum, walnuts, and cinnamon. I want to recreate this flavor combination in a wine (or mead, potentially). So far, I have the following ideas for a one gallon batch:

• Five pounds of bananas (most one-gallon banana wine recipes call for three pounds, but I want lots of banana flavor).
• Two pounds of Grade A maple syrup
• Enough white sugar to bring O.G. to 1.090
• Lalvin 71-B yeast.
• Fermaid-O

Then, in secondary, I would back-sweeten to taste with maple syrup, add a heavily toasted oak spiral, and (possibly) a cinnamon stick. While this basic process looks promising, I have two questions: (i) should I swap brown sugar for white sugar to get more of the flavor profile I'm looking for, or would brown sugar threaten to overpower everything else?, and (ii) what else could I add or change?

 

[bernardsmith]

I would make sure that your bananas are beyond ripe and I would add some of the peel (when I make banana wine I add all the peel but you may prefer to be more cautious if your fruit is not organically grown. The amount of pesticides used by growers on bananas is not insignificant and to the best of my knowledge simply washing the peel does not remove the chemicals that may have been absorbed. Though that said, that would suggest that such fruit may be a problem to eat even when peeled. The peel, by the way, adds, additional sugars and tannins.

 

[Pendragon524]

I would make sure that your bananas are beyond ripe and I would add some of the peel (when I make banana wine I add all the peel but you may prefer to be more cautious if your fruit is not organically grown. The amount of pesticides used by growers on bananas is not insignificant and to the best of my knowledge simply washing the peel does not remove the chemicals that may have been absorbed. Though that said, that would suggest that such fruit may be a problem to eat even when peeled. The peel, by the way, adds, additional sugars and tannins.

Hi Bernard! I've made banana wine once before and I used the whole peel, and that's my plan this time too. The bananas I bought are organically grown, but from my quick Google searching, it looks like certified organic foods can still contain pesticides, so even then there's no guarantee. I am not too worried about it either way.

 

[Tennessee Brew]

Maybe some vanilla bean to give it that vanilla flavor.
This got me to thinking, I have seen where folks make a mead from milk. I wonder what would happen if you tossed in a scoop of vanilla ice cream? Hospital visit maybe?

 

[bernardsmith]

Lactose is not fermentable and if you simply tossed a scoop of ice-cream my bet would be that the milk would curdle because of the acidity and you would have a sweet very soft cream cheese floating on top of the wine. Those of us who ferment on or ferment "milk" are fermenting either on the whey or are fermenting the whey itself and you can do the latter if you add enough lactase (enzyme) to break down the lactose to fermentable sugars (those folk who are lactose intolerant buy these tablets so that they can enjoy ice-cream and pizza. The lactose in the ice-cream would become fermentable but you would still be left with sweet curds (sweet, because the sugars in the must and in the ice-cream would not all have fermented and the curds contain very little whey (sugars). They are the solids - calcium and proteins in the milk.

 

[Pendragon524]

Lactose is not fermentable and if you simply tossed a scoop of ice-cream my bet would be that the milk would curdle because of the acidity and you would have a sweet very soft cream cheese floating on top of the wine. Those of us who ferment on or ferment "milk" are fermenting either on the whey or are fermenting the whey itself and you can do the latter if you add enough lactase (enzyme) to break down the lactose to fermentable sugars (those folk who are lactose intolerant buy these tablets so that they can enjoy ice-cream and pizza. The lactose in the ice-cream would become fermentable but you would still be left with sweet curds (sweet, because the sugars in the must and in the ice-cream would not all have fermented and the curds contain very little whey (sugars). They are the solids - calcium and proteins in the milk.

Yep, I figured fermenting ice cream was a bad idea! Thanks Bernard.

 

[Ty520]

Fermented maple syrup,when fully dry, has a very earthy, nutty flavor that will suck the moisture out of your mouth. I would suggest additional sugars and a higher OG, otherwise, you're going to be adding a bunch of maple syrup to back sweeten later. IMHO, when using maple, you'll want to be on the upper end of semi sweet to counter the dry,nuttiness. It's one of those earthy flavors that are hard to even perceive without some sweetness

I second the idea of sitting on vanilla. I would be bold with it,too.

Regarding lactose,you could add powdered lactose in primary. It will not ferment. It takes quite a bit to make a difference though - 1 pound will give you 40 points. It'll give you a creamy mouth feel.

For oaking, perhaps consider medium toasted American oak soaked in rum.

Some cinnamon in secondary.

I am inclined to suggest maybe even considering doing it as a sweet fortified dessert wine, with rum as your fortifying liquor