Magilla Gorilla Takes A Banana Holiday

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Schlenkerla

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Ok - I awhile back I decided on Memorial day to make my Banana Beer. This year its a stout. The last banana beer was a Dubbel Fat Tire Clone. This year its gonna be a chocolate & banana sweet milkshake stout. Its a sweet stout by style but between the cocoa, banana, the malt selection and the use of lactose and cacao nibs its gonna be more like a milkshake IPA but stout in this case. Lots of chocolate and banana flavor.

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Grist is as follows;
- 8lbs of pale malt
- 2lbs of biscuit
- 1/2 lb of dark roasted barley (unmalted)
- 1/2 lb of black malt
- 8 oz of Cocoa Powder (Yes in the mash)

Hop Schedule
- 1 oz of Northern Brewer at 60 minutes - 4.9% AAU
- 1 oz of Northern Brewer at 20 minutes - 4.9% AAU
- 10.5 lbs of Banana at 5 minutes, Banana Meat and all of the peel.

Yeast
- 2 Packs of Fermentus S-33

Other
- 4 oz of Cacao Nibs in the keg for 7 days using a tea-ball. After having been soaked for a week in rum. Just enough to cover the nips. I plan to add this rum too.

OG 1.054 (Before addition of the banana)
FG 1.015
IBU 30.2
SRM 33.3
ABV 5.1% (w/o including the banana)

HLT tank is full, Strike water in the mash tun, and waiting for my infusion mash water to hit temps.

Doughing in at 165F with 3.5 gal of water. Ok - over shot to 160! :(
 
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Picture sharing time.

This is 10.5 lbs of ripe bananas. 20 of them. Ripe is better than green it's sweeter whereas the green tend to have bittering effect.

I ripened them in plastic bags in the car for day. They were very green when I popped them in there.
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I added the cocoa in the grist for aroma and flavor. The research I did recommends adding it in the mash. You need to add it in the cracked grain so it doesn't ball up in the mash. I mixed it by hand and broke up the clumps of powder.

I tell you the grist smelled pretty chocolatey without the cocoa powder, with the powder now, it smells like it's gonna be a chocolate bomb.

When I doughed it smelled like Flintstones Cocoa Pebbles or Cocoa Puffs. LOL.

This is a picture of me adding the cocoa powder. This was the last bit. It blends easy and smells great.
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Nice. Placing the bananas in a paper bag with a cut apple will ripen them quick too. It releases the ethylene which causes the ripening.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any apples. They were very soft yesterday when I got them out of the car and dripping with juice. Passengers will ask about the banana smell. LOL :D

The large salad bowl of bananas has an inch of liquid in the bottom....
 
Just looking at the mash pictures after the last 10% of the runnings have come out, nearly 45 minutes later, there is some sedimentation of the cocoa, a lot has made it the boil.

Before sparge and after lauter....

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Damn if those nibs suck up a lot of rum.

I've added rum twice a day for the first 4 days on nibs. It's not evaporating. The lid is on super tight.

My guess I've used at least four fluid oz of rum already with the four ounces by weight of nibs.
 
Have you tried using just banana meat or using just the peels? I'm curious what flavor contributions they add.
 
Have you tried using just banana meat or using just the peels? I'm curious what flavor contributions they add.
Yeah I have in three beers and in making a bunch of bananas peel teas.

I made a banana cream ale with meat only. A double fat tire with banana and green peel. Now a chocolate stout with banana and ripe peel.

The banana meat has a lot of sugars and much of the flavor. It contributes alcohol and some banana flavor.

Whereas the banana peel has little to no sugar contribution, but the peel adds strong aroma, and flavor. It can bitter, or mildly sweeten and/or both.

In making banana peel teas, the green peel tends to bitter and add lots of banana flavor to the tea. The ripe banana peel tends to not bitter as much and leaves the tea tasting sweeter comparatively with lots of banana flavor. Ripe peel doesn't have as much bittering power, and doesn't negatively impact aroma. In fact I think it enhances aroma more than green peel.

In my opinion the peel is the prime flavor contributor. The cream ale beer, meat only, people said they tasted the banana. The fat tire ale, people smelled the banana during the pour. The nose with peel beer is obviously all banana.

The banana peel has tryptophan in it, it's the same stuff in turkey that makes people sleepy.

This is an easy thing to test out. Possibly at night. Get some bananas and some cinnamon. Make a tea with 1.5 cups of water, 1 banana peel. Boil the peel for 5-10 minutes, near the end shake in some cinnamon. Taste it noting the condition of the peel. Green vs ripe. Try it both ways.

You could screw with people make a wheat beer now with a neutral yeast, adding banana peel in the boil, and tell people you used hefeweizen yeast and they'd believe you. Such to the point they'd want to know the strain.

I poured this double fat tire beer for people in my brew club late in the meeting, who didn't hear my explanation of the beer, and they were asking what yeast I used. Said they were picking up a lot of banana ester. I LOL'd and said yeah 8lbs of banana will do that.
 
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THANK YOU! Great info!
I couldn't find this answer anywhere.

Sorry, more questions:
Do you leave all that banana in the kettle? Dump it into the boil (which it kills), leave it for 5 minutes, and then start chilling?
If you don't transfer the banana, do you use a screen or something to keep the spigot or racking cane from clogging?

Does the banana contribute haze or mouthfeel?

I'm wrestling with the idea of using banana vs coaxing banana out of a hefe or Belgian yeast, which isn't the easiest thing to get right.

Thanks again
 
THANK YOU! Great info!
I couldn't find this answer anywhere.

Sorry, more questions:
1) Do you leave all that banana in the kettle?

2)Dump it into the boil (which it kills), leave it for 5 minutes, and then start chilling?

3) If you don't transfer the banana, do you use a screen or something to keep the spigot or racking cane from clogging?

4) Does the banana contribute haze or mouthfeel?

5) I'm wrestling with the idea of using banana vs coaxing banana out of a hefe or Belgian yeast, which isn't the easiest thing to get right.

Thanks again

1) Do I leave any banana in the kettle, nope, all of it goes to the fermenter after the boil.

2) Yes I boil it, typically. I typically add the banana in the last 20 minutes of boil. You could also delay the chiller by another twenty minutes after flame out to add more aroma.

3) As for racking, I lower my racking cane until it touches, lift like an eighth inch then pump away. Then I can set it down, I get some sediment, it's only for a few seconds. Peel is typically at the top of the sediment.

4) As for clarity, I have added pectic enzyme to remove haze with the yeast addition on a beer if I want it clear on any fruit that's been in a boil situation. This beer since its stout I'm not expecting clarity, so no pectin. Boiling fruit sets pectin haze, adds fruit flavor, pectic enzyme removes the haze by digesting or breaking down the pectin. The banana has some perceived mouth feel, but it's not much in my opinion. Aging for 3-4 weeks in the primary is pretty good. You can adjust your mash temp for mouth feel. Lower less, higher more.

5) Using Hefeweizen yeast (wyeast 3068), banana ester is typically achieved at elevated temps over 68F, whereas clove esters are typically at 62F

Anything else?
 
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Really appreciate the info! Big help!

My one-year-old eats at least one banana a day; he loves them. Maybe now I can put the peels to good use!
I don't much like stouts but for some reason I have a nagging desire to make a 10% ABV spiced banana braggot. I can't explain it.

Hefeweizen yeast (wyeast 3068), banana ester is typically achieved at elevated temps over 68F, whereas clove esters are typically at 62F
Ester (e.g. amyl acetate) and phenol production vary by a combination of pitching rate and temperature. For example if you reduce pitching rate to 0.3M/mL/°P you'll get plentiful banana at 62°F.
I'm thinking this also applies to the POF+ Belgian yeasts (e.g. Lallemand Abbaye) but not sure.
Those types of yeast are crazy little guys.

So much beer. So little time to make it.
 
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Grape Ape, Honk Kong Fooey, Captain Caveman, Underdog, George of the Jungle, Huckleberry Hound... All future beers?
Maybe, I'd have to think of something really off the wall.

My double fat tire was with 8 lbs of banana, two cans of Oregon tart cherries, then racked to 8 oz of roasted oak chips for 20 days. I called called Donkey Kong. It was 8.5% abv without the banana, my guess it was more like 10% afterwards.
 
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Really appreciate the info! Big help!

My one-year-old eats at least one banana a day; he loves them. Maybe now I can put the peels to good use!
I don't much like stouts but for some reason I have a nagging desire to make a 10% ABV spiced banana braggot. I can't explain it.


Ester (e.g. amyl acetate) and phenol production vary by a combination of pitching rate and temperature. For example if you reduce pitching rate to 0.3M/mL/°P you'll get plentiful banana at 62°F.
I'm thinking this also applies to the POF+ Belgian yeasts (e.g. Lallemand Abbaye) but not sure.
Those types of yeast are crazy little guys.

So much beer. So little time to make it.
Did you ever make your braggot?

This last beer has taught me I need to do something with all the particulate matter. Like using a paint strainer in the brew kettle.

Previous batches of banana beers with 6 and 8 pounds where not a problem, however 10.5 lbs posed some trouble.

I had troubles racking. I had lots of floating peel and settled banana meat. It's either that or puree everything.

My yield was about 60%. Racking tube clogged in my SS fermenter, the auto siphon was troublesome too.
 
Pictures of this beer....

The second picture I forgot the beer was on the drip tray.... Head settled down. This beer has a nice head, not a lace leaving beer.

Tasty. Smells like chocolate, tastes like banana and chocolate.

Only do over would be too make this a big beer. It's about 6% if my memory is correct.

Oh about the lace.... I forgot to add the late addition on this beer. That might be part of the reason why.
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