Banana Toffee Wine

[machalel]

Ok, I'm doing this tonight. After a lot of research, I'm going to attempt to "mash" (in a beer-making sense) the mashed bananas. I'm also planning on splitting this batch once it is finished (depending on how well it goes etc) into:
1-Plain wine (just rack final product into bottles)
2-Fortified Banana Port (add some more sugar until it finishes at about 1.030, then fortify and age)
3-Banana Eiswein (rack into bottles, freeze & extract water)


Anyway, recipe is:


Recipe: Banana Toffee Wine

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.080 SG
Estimated FG: 0.997 SG
Estimated ABV: 11%

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
2.00 g Pectinase
1.50 kg Fruit - Banana
0.80 kg Caramelised Sugar
0.10 kg Honey
0.10 kg Fruit - Raisins
5.00 l Canberra Water
0.3 pkg W-yeast 2046
5.00 g Yeast Nutrient


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 2.75 l of water at 70.0 C 65.0 C 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 1 steps (0.75l) of 75.0 C water

 

[Muggus]

Sounds quite radical and ambitious.
Not sure what the "mashing" of the bananas will do, but ideally you'd want them as ripe as possible. In other words, they ought to be start to freckle with brown spots at least before you consider using them, otherwise you'll get those "green" characters, which arn't pleasent.
My other point is that 1.5kg of Banana really isn't much. To be honest, banana isn't a very strong flavour, and watered down amongst even 5L of water, you're most likely to lose a fair bit of flavour...and lets not forget Bananas are quite dry and fiberous, don't yield much/any(?) juice so not only getting some sort of flavour into solution may be difficult, but in doing so, it's gonna be a pain in the ass to fine...hopefully the Pectinase helps there?

 

[halabut]

From some quick google research, bananas contain alpha-amalyse, so mashing would work. I don't think they have beta-amalyse, so 70 seems fine. However, overripe bananas might already be fully converted.

 

[machalel]

Yeah, i've used ripe bananas + mash.
Ignore the 5L of water, it's actually just shy of 5L in total volume.
Finding out how much bananas to use is the hard part. Most recipes seem to use about 3 lbs per gallon (0.36 kg per L).
I'm planning on adding extra bananas in secondary if the taste isnt strong enough

 

[machalel]

I think it worked!

I tasted the left over banana this morning, and it has very little flavour an no sweetness, so I assume it's all gone into the liquid that I extracted.

It has, however, turned into jelly. I believe this is due to pectin extraction, so I recommend using pectinase (or whatever it is called) to anyone who wants to try something similar.


I caramelised the sugar about 75 mins in total. The below picture shows (from top to bottom) 0 mins, 30 mins, 45 mins, 60 mins, 75 mins.

The yeast love it! Fermentation has started almost straight away, and in less than 12 hours it has a nice bit krausen kicking off.

After adding the pectinase + DAP and giving it a swirl (and grabbing a better camera)

 

[Dave70]

This kind of outside the box stuff is cool. Make sure you keep us updated.
The ice wine idea sounds like a good get out of jail option if the straight wine ends up being to dry or out of whack.

 

[Muggus]

This kind of outside the box stuff is cool. Make sure you keep us updated.
The ice wine idea sounds like a good get out of jail option if the straight wine ends up being to dry or out of whack.

Seconded!

No doubt will come out hella hazy...were you thinking of doing anything to filter/clarify it?

 

[machalel]

I've used some pectinase to try to help a bit, other than that I'll just let it sit for a while to see what happens. If it doesn't clear I might look into finnings, but not too fussed.


I came back today (after being away for 2 days) and it's going crazy! I'll see if I can upload a video, it's really really active!

 

[machalel]

With the light behind (to get an idea of the colour):

Super Active!:

 

[machalel]

Super Active Fermentation Power!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78456231@N05/...tream/lightbox/




Every now & then it also has mini "explosions" of activity. Little eddies will form, and bursts of particles will swirl around up to 2-3 times faster than what's in the video!

This is one that probably needs a blow-off tube, as the airlock got blocked twice last night.

 

[machalel]

Fruit has all dropped, starting to clear a bit, and no longer really gassy.

SG has dropped to 0.997, so sitting around 11% at the moment.

There is a nice bit of banana aroma / taste, but I think I might add another one or two, as it's a bit mild.

 

[pmunny]

Super Active Fermentation Power!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78456231@N05/...tream/lightbox/




Every now & then it also has mini "explosions" of activity. Little eddies will form, and bursts of particles will swirl around up to 2-3 times faster than what's in the video!

This is one that probably needs a blow-off tube, as the airlock got blocked twice last night.

holy crap!

 

[Wimmig]

Get a blow off tube going, don't bother with airlocks on things like this!

 

[JulieRush]

bit of a bump, but any feedback on how this bad boy turned out?

 

[machalel]

Well it settled down, then i had a sample, decided it wasn't banana-ey enough (Muggus was right), so chopped up and added about 500g more bananas. That made it flare up again, although nowhere near as active as before. It's finished fermenting, and I've transfered it to another container for bulk aging, where it's been sitting for the last 2 months or so.

I moved it about a week or so whilst tidying, and it was still off-gassing a bit, so I'm going to wait until the 6-month mark before testing and potentially bottling it. It has, however, gone quite clear, so I assume that the pectinase works post fermentation reasonably well (with time)

I'll see if I can get a photo up this weekend

 

[SuiCIDER]

My Banana mead is still aging out from about 2 years ago, be prepared for extensive aging times.

 

[halabut]

How's this going? Tasted any yet?

 

[machalel]

Nope, no real tastings as yet. I ended up racking it a while ago (August?) to get it off all the sediment and dead yeast, and it had quite a nice banana smell to it. It tasted not too bad (was room-temp), but definitely in need of some aging.

I'll probably get around to bottling it around christmas sometime, as I'm going to be fairly busy from now until then. I will probably do a mass bottling session, as I also have a pineapple mead, muscat & savingion wine, and an aloe vera wine waiting to be bottled as well.

 

[MFleck]

crasy stuff- was just enjoying reading this thread.. how'd the bottling go, and any tasting comments/thoughts?

 

[bluc]

Going to try something similar in next day or so looks interesting