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Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:19 am
by tropik
I went to bj's to get my groceries and I saw how cheap their bananas were. About 1/2 the price as the regular grocery store. $1.29lb. I also never just used bread yeast for a ferment before and they had 2lbs for less than 5 bucks! And a 25lb bag of sugar was only $10.50! I made out today!

So I took everything home gave the bananas almost a week to ripen real good. (Should have taken pics)

Here's what I did...
~5gallons of lees from a molasses rum wash(almost like hook)
~5 gallons piping hot dunder
30lbs bananas
25lbs white sugar
20 gallons water
~1/3lb of bread yeast

I threw the bananas in the lees and hit them with a mud mixer. It didn't do too well of a job so I stuck my arm in there and mashed them by hand. Poured in the sugar. Stirred it as best possible, there was still undisolved sugar. Poured in the dunder. Stirred the hell out of it. Then 20 gallons water. And I poured 1/3 lb of bread yeast on top at 85 degrees then stirred it in.
20131017_011457.jpg
That's what it looked like right after. And of course I forgot to take a SG reading. Im always so anxious to get the yeast in there and see it active. :lol:

I know there other variations of this out there and people have made similar washes but I figured I would share my experiences with it.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:37 am
by tropik
20131017_110110.jpg
Day 2. About 10 hours after the start. This is right after stirring down the cap. I have never seen any wash so active. This thing is going nuts. Has to be the yeast (I'm used to ec1118).

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:12 am
by midwest shinner
Very nice, i made a banana rum recently but the jury is still out on the flavor, maybe too much banana and not enough molasses, who knows. But where i work bananas are $.19 each which works out to about $.47/lb. Or free if i wait til a bunch are spoiled off... keep us posted on how it turns out

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:54 am
by tropik
Damn that's cheap! I ment to say their bananas were 1.29 for 3lbs...oops.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 10:19 am
by tropik
Day 3...the airlock has slowed down a little but the ferment is still VERY active.

Before stirring down the cap.
20131018_140819.jpg

After stirring.
20131018_140926.jpg
Smells delicious!!! :lol:

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 9:09 am
by tropik
20131021_130252.jpg
Day 5 after stirring. Some banana stuff seemsmto have settled. The airlock has almost completely stopped. Im going to give it a couple of days then skim the top off. Then I'll let it clear for about a week.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:33 am
by tropik
Checked it on day 7. There was a film forming on the top, wasn't sure if it was stuff from the bananas or bacterial. So I siphoned everything out and started running. 2 stripping runs from ~55%-20%. Yeilded about 2.5gal each. Combined everything back into the still with a gallon of the wash and running it as I type. Started at ~82%.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 9:00 am
by Richard7
tropik, Did you give it a taste raw and white?

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:59 pm
by tropik
Gave it a little sip. The banana was present but not anything great. I have 2 quarts on oak and half a vanilla bean each. And 7 quarts with a cut up banana per jar. Everything was watered down to 100 proof before putting in the jars. Going the give it about a week and maybe add a little sugar to taste.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 7:43 pm
by frozenthunderbolt
tropik wrote:Gave it a little sip. The banana was present but not anything great. I have 2 quarts on oak and half a vanilla bean each. And 7 quarts with a cut up banana per jar. Everything was watered down to 100 proof before putting in the jars. Going the give it about a week and maybe add a little sugar to taste.
THAT is the key to a good banana experience - banana hooch is nothing except an inebriant without a little sugar to make it shine! :thumbup:

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 5:46 am
by tropik
1383227185016.jpg
not the most beautiful color haha

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:19 am
by tropik
Just tasted it. I little bitter. Watered 2 cups down to 80 proof. Added turbinado sugar to one cup and white sugar to the other and chilled both. The turbinado has better color and a better taste to me. The woman likes the white sugar batch better.

Tastes good and smooth but doesn't have the body that I'm used to from rum. Maybe I should have single run it...I'll give the 2 jars on oak some time and taste them. Maybe the oak will give the vibrance I'm looking for.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 11:14 am
by zachary32
I will never taste this kind of hooch.. The making of it just make me sick..

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:04 pm
by tropik
It doesn't make you hungry?? Haha. It wasn't a rotten smell or anything, the bananas were just breaking down. Just had some that has been sitting on oak. It has mellowed out a little. Needs more time.

Re: Cheap banana hooch

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 6:33 am
by stillerD
BJ's is where I get my sugar. They used to stock blueberry juice I would make wine with.. but no more.

Banana mash sounds great. That's what they make liquor with in Africa.