Natural Fermentation

[Miscreant]

Hi Everyone,

So I've been making a whole lot of banana brandy, since I sit on an acre of bananas, and it has been going pretty well and I have a method I'm so far happy with. Recently I was making my wash (5 gallons using roughly 8 lbs. bananas and 7 lbs. of sugar, which I pre-dissolve into a syrup), but I had to leave before adding more water and yeast. When I came back, the bananas had proofed up on their own, even spilling over the container they were sitting in. Obviously there was already an aggressive active yeast in there, so I figured I'd give it a try. Here's what I found interesting: From my 6 quart pot still (single run) the yield was:

150 ml heads
550 ml hearts
300 ml tails

Typically, using commercial (Red Star) bread yeast, I get something more like this:

300 ml heads
400 ml hearts
350 ml tails

The flavor of the natural yeast brandy is actually quite nice, but certainly different from my normal product. There is an ever-so-slightly bitter overtone, which isn't unpleasant and I suspect will mellow with oaking. There's also none of that yeasty flavor which normally carries over a bit when I use commercial yeast. I just found it odd that there were about half the heads of my normal runs, and I collected more deeply into the tails because the flavor never turned to wet-dog-on-cardboard. Not only that, but the heads themselves were less nasty — less of that nostril burning, acetone smell.

Has anyone else had experiences with natural fermentation, or have thoughts on or insights into my experience? I'm certainly going to try it again.