Banana wine

[mozza]

Just bottled my banana wine. I came across some cheap bananas in Asda about a month a go and my girlfriends dad got me a demijohn last year so my brewing brain got ticking and I picked up over 3 kilos of them for 30p. I froze down two kilos or more for another date.

Had a taste and its very nice to be honest. Made it with left over bits and bobs. Think it was with beer yeast as I couldn't be bothered to buy wine yeast.

I now have 4 bottles of wine for about 10p!

[Chicken Dipper]

Is it massive BANANA!!! When you drink it or subtle?

[mozza]

Very very subtle but you can make it out in the after taste, I thought it would be more!

[DeadFall]

Shouldn't banana wines use about 2kg bananas/gallon?

[Chicken Dipper]

Can you give us the recipe please Mozza?

[mozza]

Ummm it was about a kilo of bananas. I chopped them up and added water to a pan then simmered them for about half an hour. I used a blender to really mash it up. Then strained several times. Added to a demijohn and added about a kilo of sugar or until your gravity is about 1.080. Then pitched yeast. Use wine yeast though. Don't be a tight arse like me haha!

[TC2642]

You could have added all the banana to the initial ferment, most likely it would have all dissolved by the time it had finished. I did this with a kit beer years ago (never got to try it because my dad drank it all).

[mozza]

It was very sediment heavy. Looked like a brain that had been pickled during the fermentation. So in a small demijohn I would definitely suggest straining first. I'm no wine maker so is there a trick to getting no sediment in bottles other than leaving for months and months?

[DeadFall]

Finings will do it. I can't remember the the name I use, it's the two bottle stuff where you put 1-2ml of A in, wait 1/2 hour then add the same amount of B. Around 24-72 hours later the wine should be crystal clear.

For haze, use pectolase pre ferment, add it to cold must and wait 24 hours before adding yeast.

[Chicken Dipper]

Wouldn't that be a starch haze not a pectin one? Amalase would be the best bet?

[Rookie]

Very very subtle but you can make it out in the after taste, I thought it would be more!

You could try a German hefe yeast that throws off a lot of banana esters next time.

[fatbloke]

I asked most of these questions when I was gifted a case of banana's last year. It's mostly been made into banana mead (a couple of different types) and banana bread (which has long since been eaten.

Now the first banana wine recipe I looked up said about just slicing the fruit up and then boiling it, skins and all, then straining away the pulp and just fermenting the "juice". That one was nice but a little subtle for my liking. It was back sweetened with a 1lb jar of malt extract from the health food shop, and some honey. The malt seems to have increased the depth of banana flavour.

The other batch was heated and then just fermented on the pulp as that, apparently, gets a better banana flavour, but once it was finished, I just racked it off the sediment/sludge and then sliced more banana into it until the fermenter was full. It's cleared nicely, if rather light in colour and is waiting to be racked...... I've had a little taste and it's good.

These were both done with no pectic enzyme and while I'd considered the idea of maybe needing amylase, it would appear that the banana actually helps it to clear. There's no sign of any cloudiness at all.......

I don't think that if you use enough fruit, you need to pi55 about worrying whether the yeast will give banana esters etc...... it seems that if it's fermented on the fruit, you get enough flavour anyway - of course, a bit of pectic enzyme may help get a bit more flavour/aroma/colour etc, as it does seem to help with that as well as any pectins. Or maybe you could just use one of those enzymes that they have over at Brouwland for helping with colour/flavour/aroma and so on. I seem to recall that there was some for "whites" as well as those known for reds.........