dr. greanthumb's banana brandy

[drgreanthumb]

80 lbs. ripe yellow bananas (brown spots is fine)
20 lbs. sugar
1 teaspoon yeast energizer nutrient
5 packs EC-1118

peel and blend bananas (a little water in the blender helps puree em better), pour into a 30 gallon fermenter barrel. heat and melt sugar with some water and add to fermenter then add a teaspoon nutrients. add water and top off to 20 gallons. activate and add yeast. run slow and low. should yield about 2.5 gallons.

[Prairiepiss]

I bet that wash will clear really good. I made a Banana wine once. It was the fastest clearing wine I ever made. The wine wasn't so good. But it made a great cooking wine. One of these days when I have 80 lbs of bananas laying around I will have to try it.

[glsazdanoff]

first time distiller with a few questions, How long (Weeks) do i let my banana mash sit before distillation? Also at what temperature do i distill my banana mash, the recipe looks great cant wait to try it.

[drgreanthumb]

I bet that wash will clear really good. I made a Banana wine once. It was the fastest clearing wine I ever made. The wine wasn't so good. But it made a great cooking wine. One of these days when I have 80 lbs of bananas laying around I will have to try it.

It clears very nicely.

first time distiller with a few questions, How long (Weeks) do i let my banana mash sit before distillation? Also at what temperature do i distill my banana mash, the recipe looks great cant wait to try it.

I could not wait to rip into you about your stupid question about "what temp to distill" but I can't ... I've been in the hobby for 3 years and I'm still making mistakes and learning each ferment and run. This is my third time making this recipe and the final product never lasts long. It's very aromatic and flavorful and at 45% packs plenty of punch. Follow the recipe as is. Ferment at 65-70 degrees if possible. My cap fell and was ready to run on the 15th day. Run in a potstill very slow and low. I do 2 10gallon runs as not to over fill my 15 gallon pot. BE SURE TO STRAIN OUT ALL OF THE PULP ON THE BOTTOM!!! I can not stress this enough. I made the mistake of running with the pulp in my second half of the batch and f*cked up everything. (pot, head, condenser, and the most important part - the booze) I had to pressure wash the burnt shit from inside the pot, scrub all the insides of the head and condenser with vinegar and then again with lemon, then do another cleaning run. I ended up with under 2 gallons at 90 proof. I would of got 3gallons at 100 had I not made a stupid amateur move, but hey, a lesson learned - and I'm sharing it with you. As for the other part of your question ... I believe its 173 degrees. I run a pot and used to have a thermometer in it, but learned it really does no good, I make all cuts by my parrot, taste and smell. Keep reading and you'll find all you need on this site. Good Luck & Stay Safe.

[Bayou-Ruler]

Is this in honor of Tim Smith ?....

[Bushman]

I bet there was a run on banana's after the moonshiner series!

[drgreanthumb]

learned everything i know from that show

[mtblackdog]

Thats alot of nanners. Are you blending with a drill and mud paddle.

[blind drunk]

I could not wait to rip into you about your stupid question about "what temp to distill" but I can't

Nice show of restraint

[glsazdanoff]

My mash is extremely spongy and there doesn't appear to be much liquid below my cap... I followed the recipe as is and am in my third day of fermentation, is this normal?

[RumBrewer]

My mash is extremely spongy and there doesn't appear to be much liquid below my cap... I followed the recipe as is and am in my third day of fermentation, is this normal?

Did you do the whole schebang, or scaled down.
My bananas soaked up a LOT of water and gave off a LOT of sugar over the 18 days it took to ferment out. And I only had 11 bananas in 5 gallons.

Also, can we call this brandy? Doesn't that indicate a product distilled from a grape based wine?
Seems to me that Banana Rum is more accurate. If you used raw sugar... it would even be a really bastardized Agricol?

[mtblackdog]

Ok one more question about the nanners. I know as bananas mature like other fruits the suger content goes up and up. So is it beneficial to use them when they are really ripe say lots of brown spots or do you think that it really matters other than they would be easier to blend the riper they are. What about taste I think over ripe bananas dont have the taste that just ripe ones do, would that carry into the distillate. Hmmmmm

[RumBrewer]

Banana "essence" seems to increase as they brown.
Don't let them spoil, but good and brown.
Sorry GreenThumb if I am talking out of turn here.

[blind drunk]

Also, can we call this brandy?

Bananarama?

[Dnderhead]

you used sugar that eliminates "brandy"
brandy is another that they argue about, "its got to be made from grapes" "it can be made from fruit"etc..
but one thing they do agree on is no sugar allowed in brandy ferment.then any thing fermented from sugar cane products is rum..so maybe its rumandy?or rumdy? you pick its your product..

[GOBR]

I like usin bananas. Seems they get goin pretty good. Im going to have to try this soon.....

[zouthernborne]

Did you do the whole schebang, or scaled down.
My bananas soaked up a LOT of water and gave off a LOT of sugar over the 18 days it took to ferment out. And I only had 11 bananas in 5 gallons.

How did your "brandy" turn out, RumBrewer? I've been thinking of doing a banana rum and using Wyeast strain I found that provides banana esters in the wash. Was 11 bananas enough for your final product to have a nice smell/flavor? And did you leave it white or oak it? Details, man, details!!

[RumBrewer]

How did your "brandy" turn out, RumBrewer? I've been thinking of doing a banana rum and using Wyeast strain I found that provides banana esters in the wash. Was 11 bananas enough for your final product to have a nice smell/flavor? And did you leave it white or oak it? Details, man, details!!

Well, I am happy with it. I ended up with about 3 litres at 32%, and treated them 3 ways.
One bottle got mulling spices. Just about a day on a teaspoon of spice mix. It's really nice. Cinnamon is a bit much, but I think it'll mellow and turn out excellent.
One bottle got another banana. Peel and all sliced thin. For about 5 days. It's like a fresh banana. Lightly flavored and yummy.
One bottle is white. The last time I tasted it, it was hot, not very flavorful and it smelled very little like banana.
It made good likker, but not what I expected. I suspect the white will end up the best of the bunch in due time.

11 nanners was pretty light on fruit, but because I wasnt' counting on sugar from the fruit nor was I trying to make banana extract, I am happy with it. I would maybe double the banana, but I doubt it.

The fores were the really fun part! Adding 200 ml to my "Solvent" jug.... Made the best smelling banana air freshener you can imagine! Dit a paper towel in it and it'll make the room smell nice for hours!

[glsazdanoff]

Im 16 days into fermentation and my cap is yet to drop... should i be concerned?

[RumBrewer]

Im 16 days into fermentation and my cap is yet to drop... should i be concerned?

The bananas won't likely sink.
Punch them down, wait a few days, or just rack out from underneath them.

[Hillbilly dog]

To do a wash using 4 bananas, and 1 lbs of sugar per gallon of water can I use malted barley for the enzyme. And if I wanted to get 15 to 20 gallons of useable wash how much water should I use. Ant help will be appreciated .

[diesel]

Stupid question, but are the bananas mashedup in this recipe? Im new to this an am thinking about trying this recipe.

[drgreanthumb]

sorry i've been gone for a while. i'll address a few things i've read and i've learned doing this recipe. with the formula i gave you will have a huge thick spongy cap, this should be stirred back in once a day if possible. around 14-20 days (depending on temp) you should be ready to run. each time i've made this recipe, the cap falls and all the banana pulp falls to the bottom. do not make the same mistake i made once and try to run the pulp, it will burn in the tank. instead get an old clean cotton t-shirt or a good batch of cheese cloth and strain all the beer out the pulp. let the cheese cloth hang for an hour or more to strain all the goods out. i only add sugar to increase my alcohol content. a good ripe batch of bananas with water and yeast can yield some really tasty stuff, but i sacrifice some flavor for more volume. i cut mine to about 45% and leave it clear. it smells wonderfully of banana, but yet the flavor will be different with variables ( how rip the bananas, sugar or no sugar, and your cuts & mixing) i've had batches that have been compared to tequila and some to brandy, and when done right, that is with out a doubt "made from bananas" ... i like using fruit because the outcomes are endless, sometimes good, some bad... but its the experimenting and having "the last bottle in the world of that stuff so enjoy" batch, that makes it all worth while. be safe & have fun!

[topNoEvil0420]

Just about to Still 3 20L Carboys of a Banana Mash, I had abt 10 KG of White table sugar laying around and a few cartons of Fancy table molasses so I decided i was going to make some rum, While stopping at the store I saw a case of banana's on reduced as the were starting to go brown so I decided to buy them and add them to my rum wash after 13 days everything is finally clearing and will be running it in a few days... Has anyone else mixed Banana's and molasses?

[RumBrewer]

the cap falls and all the banana pulp falls to the bottom.

How long? my nanners never sank.
May have been in a hurry..... Who knows!

i like using fruit because the outcomes are endless, sometimes good, some bad... but its the experimenting and having "the last bottle in the world of that stuff so enjoy" batch, that makes it all worth while. be safe & have fun!

Without a doubt!

[Beerswimmer]

Any more updates on this?

[HolyBear]

I'm glad you bumped this post beerswimmer,...

This weekend I didn't have any beta (gluco) enzyme, I did have some Beno (alpha), used it with no discernible reaction. So after doing some reading here on HD, someone had mentioned that they thought banana peel had beta enzyme in it... it made sense to me because bananas are kinda starchy to my taste, till they are bruised or older, then they turn sweet... so I ate a couple bananas scraped the white stuff off the inside of the peel, chopped it up, it immediately turned black, I then added it to my thick mash. It started breaking it down and getting more watery... this morning the liquid was on top and I had an SG of 1.04...

Since greenthumb obviously has access to lots of bananas, I hope he tries some experiments to see if they would be an alternative to malted grains for mashing...

Dunder?

[greatlakesltnin]

as its getting cold in my area and i have been savin up some nanners myself, id sure like for someone to show me a scaled down recipe foe say...10 gallons of mash?? anyone care to do attempt the scale down? i cant figure it out to save my life, and im ready to roll with it as soon as i figure it out... c'mon...someone give me a hand please...i cant ferment outside till spring..i gotta do it inside or not at all...and not at all is unacceptable..

[greatlakesltnin]

by the way.....it sez only one teaspoon of yeast nutrient was used in the recipe/???? why even even bother? according to my bottle of nutrient it sez to use one teaspoon per gallon.. im not complaining , nor knocking the recipe at all, as it seems to work well and gives out a nice amount of spirits, im simply curious. im pleased to see that the yeast used is good ol lalvin ec1118.. i figured 1116 would be what you would use.. has anyone ever tried redstars cuvee??? you fellas know its alot cheaper and has the same type of effect as the lalvin product... ive tried both.. and both gave the excact results.. i use lalvin now just becase im following the piper i suppose..just my ten cents.. thats all.. where i get yeast..redstar cuvee is .59cents and lalvin is .89cents

[Dnderhead]

"someone to show me a scaled down recipe foe say...10 gallons of mash?? "
whats so hard?
30gal was made? and you want 10? so 10>30=3,,,so divide everything by 3
80lb bananas <3=26.666666
20 sugar <3 =6.6666
1 tea energizer???<3= 1/3 tea

i thank some one years ago tryed peeles for enzymes,,and they were verry margenel.