Banana Wine

[caitlintilt]

So I want to make banana wine, the recipie I have involves boiling 650g of peeled banana with 225g of raisins or dates for 15 mins, but I think I'm going to use prunes, and then straining them into a fermentation vessel with sugar, I think it's around 1.5kg of sugar but I'm not sure, and then of course yeast, before straining it into my secondary fermentation vessel after a few days. What I was wondering was whether it would be better to leave the fruit in for a few days, because to me it doesn't seem that only boiling it 15 mins would impart a whole lot of flavour, and also what is the significance of the first fermentation vessel, when other wines I've just put straight in my demijohn, although to be fair I have only made kit wines and mead, never used fresh fruit. Thankyou :)

 

[yellafella]

Doesn't seem like a lot of bananas to be, also be prepared for a terrible smell of boiling bananas!!

 

[caitlintilt]

Hmmm how many bananas would you reccomend?

 

[caitlintilt]

Revised recipie: 2 kilo of bananas, 500g prunes, 1.5 kg sugar, yeast, pectolase

method: boil bananas and prunes for 20 mins in about 3 L of water, leave overnight, bring back to boil, when warm strain into demijohn onto the sugar, leave to cool to room temperature, add yeast and pectolase and fit airlock. Obviously sanitise everything.

how do you think this is?

also, advice on the skins? I may just put a few of the skins in, about 1/4 of them, I don't want an especially dry wine, but not a desert wine either, just one that's fruity and drinkable. I may leave out the skins and add half a cup of tea to the recipie :)

 

[oldbloke]

I'd drop the sugar a bit. Dunno how much is in the nanas and prunes, but 1.5kg sugar in a gallon is somewhere around 16 to 17 %ABV by itself
I'd do 1.2 or 1.25kg

 

[awl23]

I'd use over ripe bananas for the extra hit of flavour

 

[caitlintilt]

I'm not too concerned about the percentage, I just wanted some sugar left over so it was not too dry, I have potassium sorbate and campden tablets though so I suppose I could just keep an eye on it with a hydrometer and stop it where I want it?

 

[oldbloke]

That's the only way to make sure you get a bit of sweetness, unless you want something like 18%. The yeast will eat everything it can until the ABV gets high enough to kill it

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

I'd add the pectolase to the fruit after the initial boil.

Pectolase turns pectin into sugar, however if you strain off the pulp you'll lose a lot of your pectin (and therefore sugar) in the pulp. Putting the pectolase in once the fruit has cooled after the initial boil will increase the amount of sugar in the must by breaking down the pulp and releasing it. It should increase the amount of flavour compounds released into the liquid as well. Obviously you'll need to use a bit more pectolase if you do this. You'll also need to work out how much sugar to add as you go - decide what SG you want, then add sugar incrementally until you reach it.

The main process involved in ripening of bananas is production of amylase and pectinase, which break down the starches and pectin into sugars. This is why a very ripe banana tastes sweeter and has softer flesh than a less ripe one. So the riper the banana the less pectin it contains, and the better it is for wine or beer.

If you want a sweet wine that doesn't have a sky-high ABV, look for a yeast that won't tolerate high levels of alcohol. Vintner's Harvest BV7 peaks at about 13%, and I'm sure there are others.

 

[caitlintilt]

My hydrometer has SG on it, but also a simpler labelling which says sweet, medium and dry wine, with a bottle mark around 1.000 SG and the medium goes from about 1.010 SG to about 1.015 SG if I've read it right, I'll just put the hydrometer in everyday and stop it at this mark :) Thanks for the tip about the pectolase, I've bought 4kg of bananas (weighed with skin on) today, and I'm going to leave them for a week or two until they're good and brown, I have ritchies sauterne wine yeast and ritchies hock wine yeast at the moment, I don't think either of those are low abv ones, not judging by how they've behaved in my other wines at least :L

 

[Kev888]

Many (many) years ago my one and only attempt at banana wine gave me such a monumental hangover that it still stands out even today - probably something i did wrong in those early days, but maybe treat with some caution initially just in case. It tasted really quite nice though, so I should probably have another go at some point.

Cheers
Kev

 

[MadrikXIV]

I did the banana wine recipe from the CJ Berry Book, think it involved an hourr of boiling bananas, with a quarter of the skins, and the raisins.

It created an almighty whiff, then when cooled, I strained and squeezed as much from the pulpy mass as possible, this led to a rather odd looking liquid, almost like them water sand thingies.

Sugar, yeast added for a five days I think, in me bucket, then racked off from the strange sludgey brain matter looking stuff (was quite a thick gloop left behind, and went to a better looking shade of yellow afterwards)

It's still bubbling at the moment after several weeks, SG was up around 1.15 I think, unlike my dandelion, that I started yesterday, ermmm it was above 1.16, if the hydrometer had 1.17 then that may be closer