Estimated time: 30 min – 2 years

Initial Brix 18.5; 22.5 after adding sugar during secondary

pH 3.4

Yeast AW4 Vitners

Discussion

A good banana wine can really impress at your next party! In my Homemade Backwoods Banana Wine Recipe we will do a secondary fermentation on Brettanomyces for added character and backwoods twang. (Or don’t its up to you).

Fact of the day: Did you know that Brettanomyces can handle itself like a pro in harsh conditions? This makes it ideal for pitching into higher ABV fruit wines, ciders and beer.

Thankfully when making fruit wine (or really fermenting anything) there is a lot of room for improvisation and innovation. With this in mind feel free to add spices, swap yeasts, add other fruit, try adding raisins. Be sure to taste your wine as it goes through the different processes to understand how it changes flavor over time. This will also help catch wine flaws like hydrogen sulfide gas.

Tasting Notes

(Added after secondary fermentation completed)

This Homemade Backwoods Banana Brett Wine Recipe was a complete experiment and turned out to be one of the best fruit wines I have ever made. The banana comes through both on the nose and on the tongue. This is complimented by pineapple, a light ‘breadyness’ and vanilla. I added the oak chips without sanitizing them and I believe this introduced malolactic bacteria which gave the wine an amazing mouth feel, similar to a chardonnay. The Funky Brett character is not quite there yet but has added perhaps a little more acidity. Brett characteristics tend to ramp up during aging anyhow, so I am not worried.

Sourcing the Fruit

Luckily bananas can be sourced at most supermarkets year round. For this reason I often make this wine during winter when all other fruits are generally considered out of season.

Before you run out to the grocery store and pick the banana shelf clean here are a couple tips.

You want very ripe bananas, the more spots the better. Often your local markets will discount over ripe bananas for cents on the pound. Aim for Organic bananas. Although peeling them substantially removes the risk of pesticide contamination. Yuck! You’ll notice that I peeled mine as they were conventionally grown. Whatever you do not use can be dehydrated as a nice snack.

~12 lbs of Bananas



Equipment Needed

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5-8 gal food grade plastic fermenter with lid

Length of 1/2″ blow off tubing. Size should be the inner diameter

Large hop sack

Airlock

Stirring Utensil

pH Meter

Hydrometer or Refractometer

Racking cane/auto siphon

5 gal glass carboy

Bung, or stopper for glass carboy

Note Pad

Private Reserve Wine Preservation System

Ingredients Needed

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12-15 lbs of peeled bananas (paid less than 6$) add half the peels to the bucket if Organic.

5 gallons of good water (I say ‘good’ because not all water is created equal)

10 lbs of dextrose sugar for primary fermentation (enough to get roughly 10% ABV)

2-3lbs of dextrose sugar for secondary fermentation

Acid Blend

2.5 tsp Pectic enzyme

Campden Tablets or Potassium meta-bisulfite

White wine or fruit wine yeast. I used AW4 Vintners for fullness and spice

Brettanomyces Lambicus Yeast Strain

Yeast Strain Yeast Nutrient

French Oak Chips Medium Toast (optional)

Cinnamon Stick (optional)

Add all your bananas.

Making My Homemade Backwoods Banana Wine Recipe

Primary Fermentation

It is always a good idea to record detailed notes when making wine. Especially important are readings for Original Gravity/Brix, pH and TA (not discussed in this recipe).

Line the plastic fermenter with the hop sack. Peel all the bananas and put in fermenter, don’t worry about breaking them up as we will crush them by hand later. Add the water and the sugar. Take a refractometer reading or hydrometer reading to ensure you are in the 10%ABV range. Tie a rubber band around the mesh hop sack so it will stay closed. Using your clean hands squish and mash up the bananas for about a minute. Add 5 Campden tablets or 1/4 tsp of potassium meta-bisulfite. This will essentially wipe the slate clean of bacteria so the yeast can do its best work. Let sit for 24hrs with the lid only set on top not sealed. This will allow sulfurous gasses to escape as the potassium meta-bisulfite dissipates. After 24hrs we will measure our pH and adjust by slowly adding the acid blend until we are close to pH-3. This has been observed to be the optimal pH for banana must. I opted to let it sit at 3.4 because I had already added a good amount of acid blend.

Add the Yeast

Once the wine pH and acid is balanced we will add the wine yeast (do not add the Brettanomyces strain yet). Put the lid on. If you have an 8 gal bucket you will attach the filled airlock. With a 5 gal bucket you should use the blowoff tubing instead. If using blowoff tubing put one end in the stopper and the other in a clean jar filled with water. We will keep the bananas on the wine for 7 days at 65-72 deg F dependent on your yeast strain. Each day you should push the bananas down into the wine. Otherwise you risk exposing them to the air for too long. For best results do this twice a day. After seven days remove the bag of banana pulp and re-cover. Continue fermentation.

Here I used an 8gal fermenter so there was plenty of head space for primary fermentation.

For the ‘Backwoods Twang’: Secondary Fermentation

When primary fermentation is done (no longer fervently bubbling) you can rack (transfer) to the 5 gallon glass carboy. A good auto siphon is a handy tool for this. Take another hydrometer reading. Use this spreadsheet from More Wine Making to adjust the refractometer reading to account for the presence of alcohol. Take another pH reading (we are still aiming for a pH between 3-3.3). Once everything is confirmed balanced add 2-3 lbs of dextrose sugar. Add your Brettanomyces strain. Give it that Backwoods Twang. Add oak chips at 1-2oz/5gal. (note: after tasting I decided this is a must, so good!) Let ferment for another 30days between 65-70 deg F. After 30 days rack again. See below if you don’t have a second glass carboy. This can be done by racking into the original bucket, washing the carboy and racking back.

It is very important to keep the racking hose below the liquid level to avoid oxidizing your wine. If there is more than 3″ of headspace in your carboy use Private Reserve Wine Preserver to prevent oxidation. Let sit for a minimum of 60 days to completely finish fermenting, clear wine of haze and degas. Taste. Consider adding tannins (after tasting this was another great idea!) if your wine seems flat or lacks character. This is generally necessary if you did not include organic peels (primary source of tannins).

I try to make about one batch a month so there is never a shortage!

Once you feel your wine is done give it another couple weeks 😉 Then bottle. Most experts agree that wine goes through 30 days of bottle shock. This causes your wine to be temporarily less than perfect. Age your wine for a minimum of two months before drinking all of them. Also, consider reading Cellar Raiders post on the importance of aging wine.

Leave me a comment if you liked my Homemade Backwoods Banana Wine recipe. Thanks and Enjoy.

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