Spiced Banana Wine

[Robbo]

Gonna give this one a whirl,

1.5 kg Banana's including the skins
250 grams of chopped raisins
30 grams of cloves
30 grams of ginger
1 kg of sugar
1 tsp of citric acid
1 crushed campden tablet
1/2 tsp of tannin
1 tsp of pectrolase
1 Tsp of Amylase
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp of your favourite yeast

You could include a stick of cinnamon or other spices and herbs to give the wine more flavour but I'm just sticking to the recipe above.

 

[oldbloke]

Banana wine is on my to-do list, spiced sounds even more fun.
Looking forward to hearing how the spices survive the ferment.

 

[Pembsbrewer]

Gonna give this one a whirl,

1.5 kg Banana's including the skins
250 grams of chopped raisins
30 grams of cloves
30 grams of ginger
1 kg of sugar
1 tsp of citric acid
1/2 tsp of tannin
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp of your favourite yeast

You could include a stick of cinnamon or other spices and herbs to give the wine more flavour but I'm just sticking to the recipe above.

Hey Mate, how many liters/gallons is this for, might have a go at this

 

[kentmark]

Whats the process to brew this one?

 

[oldbloke]

Hey Mate, how many liters/gallons is this for, might have a go at this

The 1kg sugar makes me think 1 gallon

 

[jasea3632]

what about pectolase is it needed with banana????

 

[gl0ckage]

I made something similar, a banana beer, I used cinnamon too. The taster I tried was amazing I think your onto a winner.

 

[Robbo]

what about pectolase is it needed with banana????

I've amended my recipe as I also missed out the Campden Tablet

I've never made a banana wine before so I'm going to try two different ways to cut/prepare the fruit because of the texture of the banana.
I'm going to cut the ends off the bananas because they are very sour and would probably taint the flavour.
The process of fermentation is going to be the same with each way i prepare the fruit.

First method is to finely cut the banana and skins separately and the other way is to cut the banana into slices with the skin still on the fruit. As I think this may not make the must turn into a porridge like substance.

It's up to you as which way you want to cut the fruit up, it may even be easier to use a muslin bag.

Place the cut up bananas and raisins into a stockpot or bucket with the sugar, cloves, ginger (and two sticks of cinnamon, if wanted) and pour in 3.5 litres of boiling water.
With a little amount of warm water in a glass or jug, mix in the citric acid, crushed campden tablet, tannin, pectrolase, Amylase and yeast nutrient.

Pour this solution in with the bananas and stir in very gently and try to keep the fruit intact.

Leave the must for at least 24 hours before adding the yeast or yeast starter.


When using fresh fruit I always ferment on the pulp for around ten days as I think this will extract more flavour and colour.
After ten days, rack into a demi john and top up with white grape juice.

Because of the texture of the bananas I'm going to assume this type of wine will take quite a time to clear and will require more rackings than usual.

Sorry, I forgot......this is a recipe for 1 gallon/4.5 litres

 

[alanywiseman.]

30g of clove sounds a lot to me. Are you adding the spices pre fermentation or post?

 

[Robbo]

I'm adding the cloves and all the other ingredients except the yeast to a pre-fermentation must. If you put the spices in after fermentation at those levels, it would be very over powering.

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

what about pectolase is it needed with banana????

There should be amylase there as well, to deal with the starch.

 

[alanywiseman.]

I'm adding the cloves and all the other ingredients except the yeast to a pre-fermentation must. If you put the spices in after fermentation at those levels, it would be very over powering.

I totally agree. The advantage you have doing it post fermentation is you can monitor how quickly the spices are infusing and can take them out once they reach what you are looking for.

 

[Robbo]

what about pectolase is it needed with banana????

There should be amylase there as well, to deal with the starch.

Thanks for the info.....I've amended the recipe. :thumb:

 

[Robbo]

I'm adding the cloves and all the other ingredients except the yeast to a pre-fermentation must. If you put the spices in after fermentation at those levels, it would be very over powering.

I totally agree. The advantage you have doing it post fermentation is you can monitor how quickly the spices are infusing and can take them out once they reach what you are looking for.

That's what I had in mind, I would hate to think I had to chuck the wine down the drain because I had over done the spices at the end of the fermentation.

 

[Robbo]

Just a quick update ....my two spiced banana wines have been fermenting on the pulp for 5 days now and everything seems to be going well. As soon as you smell the must, christmas comes straight to mind. I'm going to strain into DJ's after another 5 days in FV, I know it is a bit late for this christmas so I'm going to keep them for next year...after I've tried a couple off glasses first

I've put another two Banana wines on today but this time I've swapped the raisins for figs, so instead of using 250 grams of raisins, Ive put 1kg of dried figs as fresh figs would cost a fortune and I have also added a small stick of cinnamon.

 

[Robbo]

Racked my spiced banana to a clean demi-john today,(there was a good inch of sediment at the bottom), and the flavour is still pretty strong, mainly from the cloves.

Edit; for anyone who hasn't used cloves before, they have a very strong sarspariller flavour just like those red cough candies we used to have.

 

[kentmark]

Had a load of bananas spare at home not likely.to be eaten so thought i would give this a go. Have only got the bananas etc in a small fv in the (earlier on) boiling water. Will add yeast tomorrow. Have put the small fv inside a large one as I get the impression it could be a bit lively when the yeasties get to work! Smelt lovely already though.

 

[kentmark]

Just added my yeast to the must. Took a gravity reading before adding, 1.102 - the highest i have ever had! Using youngs super wine yeast so hope this can cope with this. All tucked up in a warm room under a blanket, keeping fingers crossed now!

 

[aneray]

I have a load of bananas bought for a couple of quid blacking off in the cupboard at the moment. I must have enough to do four gallons so I might do two of this recipe and two basic banana.

A great tip I saw on the web last week is to leave the bananas until black and then freeze them. Once very slightly defrosted slice into thin rings, peel and all, and then follow recipe as usual. Freezing them will make the breakdown much easier and a doddle to slice with the skins on.

 

[kentmark]

Racked off of the fruit last night (what with Christmas and everything it ended up about 2 weeks on the fruit). Added a litre of apple juice (couldn't get any WGJ when I went shopping). Into the DJ, bubbler put in and left overnight in our kitchen (fairly warm room in the house).

Looking at it this morning, found almost no activity in the airlock. Also it looks like the wine has separated in the DJ, the bottom third was very clear (very apple juice looking) the top 2 thirds were very cloudy and looked full of sediment.

Any thoughts about how to proceed?