Banana wine at home – 2 detailed recipes

As you know, a banana is the favorite food of all monkeys, including humans. But, if some monkey prefers to gobble up a banana just like that, then the highest primate, that is, Homo Sapiens, will try to make something more interesting out of this fruit – for example, an original and very tasty wine. Yes, you’ll have to move. But believe me, this is not a monkey’s work at all, but a noble work that will give us a noble result – a delicious, incomparable, exclusive alcoholic drink!

Of course, bananas are far from ideal raw materials for winemaking. They contain a lot of starch and sugars, which by no means want to burst yeast cultures, they are extremely reluctant to give juice, they contain few necessary acids, tannins and tannins. All this will have to be fought with various means – heating, additives and other shamanism. However, marvelous, recognizable from the first … hmm, snuff the aroma, wonderful, delicate taste of banana wine made “with these hands” at home is a worthy reward for the fuss. After all, it was labor that made a man out of a monkey, and it will also make wine from a banana – an unsuitable, but such a tasty raw material.

Both recipes for homemade banana wine, which we will consider today, cannot be called easy. They will definitely require various additives – pectinase, additional acids and tannin, special yeast and top dressing, in one of the recipes special enzymes are also used to liquefy and saccharify starch (what it is, why you need it and where to get it, I will tell you directly in the text ), the wort will have to be heated, repeatedly filtered. In general, it’s not an easy task – if you want to get a delicious drink faster and easier, it’s better to make one of the banana liqueurs, we have a whole article about them. For those to whom difficulties only add excitement, I present, in fact, the recipes.

Homemade banana wine – the first recipe, simpler

Let’s start with a simpler recipe, without hydrolytic enzymes. But you still have to look into the wine shop – at least for yeast and tannin (you can try replacing it with a couple of cups of very strong black tea), an acid mixture (tartaric, tannic and other acids necessary for stabilization and normal fermentation). Also, the pectin enzyme will not interfere, which will soften the banana pulp and release the juice – they say that the same effect is obtained by boiling the fruit with sugar and lemon juice, followed by infusion for an hour at a temperature of 70 degrees. So.

To prepare, we need a large pot, a 30 liter fermenter, as well as filter accessories, ideally a large bag for mashing malt.

1. Well washed, but not peeled bananas cut into rings. We do not grind them into porridge – otherwise small banana bones will appear in the wort, which will inevitably give bitterness.

2. We put the banana rings in a large saucepan, add all the sugar and half the water there. Heat almost to a boil, but do not let it boil. We heat over low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. We continue heating for another 45 minutes, making sure that the liquid does not boil. After that, turn it off and let it cool down.

3. We add the acid mixture, tannin and pectinase to the resulting porridge, cover with a thick rag and let stand for a day. During this time, pectinase will soften the banana pulp as much as possible, destroy the fibers and release moisture from them, that is, the juice that we need.

4. Throughout the day, the porridge must be constantly stirred, and after that, add the yeast along with the nutrient and the remaining water according to the recipe. Within 12 hours you should notice signs of fermentation – the wort will begin to foam, emit a characteristic smell of fermentation. It’s time to pour it into a bottle, rearrange it in a warm dark room and install a water seal.

5. Primary fermentation, depending on various factors, will last 5-10 days. At this time, the wine should be periodically stirred with a clean plastic or wooden spatula or simply by shaking the bottle. When the yeast activity begins to decrease – the water seal almost does not gurgle, the “cap” of the pulp has settled to the bottom, the liquid has become a little lighter – it’s time to move on to the next phase.

6. The most difficult and time-consuming part of this banana wine recipe is filtering and pressing the must. This can be done through several layers of gauze (not the best option), a loose fabric, best of all – a brewing bag for mashing malt. If you have a sufficiently productive juicer, you can use it. There is no need to carefully filter the wort – small remnants of the pulp will then precipitate.

7. At the moment, fermentation should end at 70-80%. Taste the wort – it should taste slightly sweet. So, it’s time to move it to another, smaller fermenter – its volume should be filled by 90-95%, transfer it to a cool (12-15°) place for another 2-3 months.

8. During the secondary fermentation, the wine will gradually lighten and form a sediment of dead yeast and small remnants of the pulp. You need to get rid of it by decanting – just drain the liquid into another container through a tube. It is advisable to repeat the procedure at least once a month.

9. When the liquid has become completely light, the sediment no longer forms, and the water seal is completely quiet – you can start bottling. Before this, the wine is usually stabilized with potassium sorbate – 4-5 tablets per volume will be enough, just crush the substance into a bottle and mix everything well until it is completely dissolved, then wait 2-3 days and pour the wine into bottles. Also at home, banana wine can be stabilized in a simpler way – fix it with strong alcohol, you can read about this procedure in this material. But still, banana wines are best made light.

Before tasting the wine requires aging in bottles. It is optimal to keep it for a year – by this time the taste of the drink will be fully revealed, and the aroma will delight you with new nuances! If the technology is followed, the wine turns out to be quite strong, but drinkable, very beautiful and very banana!

How to make wine from bananas with enzymes?

More complex recipe. In general, the ingredients are similar – the same tannin, the same acids, but in addition, special hydrolytic enzymes are used – alpha-amylase and glucoamylase. These substances are well known to moonshiners who make grain distillates – they are used as a simpler and more reliable alternative to malt, for saccharification of starches. Alpha-amyl (enzyme A, amylosubtilin) ​​is needed to liquefy the wort and its primary decomposition to maltose, and glucoamylase (enzyme D, glucavamorin, glucomil) completes the process, breaking down maltose and starch residues to glucose, which yeast willingly bursts. Thus, we will get the maximum degree and greatly simplify the task of pressing and filtering the wort – it will be much more liquid. Such enzymes are sold in almost any special store, they are relatively inexpensive.

In general, the preparation is similar to the previous banana wine recipe, but with its own nuances. We will need a large pot, a couple of blankets or sleeping bags, preferably an insulated mash tank, and a large 20 liter bottle.

1. Wash and cut bananas, as in the previous recipe, add 5 liters of water, all the sugar, heat, stirring, almost to a boil, simmer in this state, stirring, for about half an hour. We thoroughly knead the banana slices and add lemon juice or acid, tannin and the first enzyme, alphamil, to the porridge, stir, close the pan and wrap it up, leave for an hour. The optimum temperature for enzyme A to work is 90-95°C.

2. After an hour, open the pan and cool the mixture slightly, periodically measuring the temperature. As soon as it reaches 65 ° – add glucoamylase, stir again, wrap and leave for another half hour. Boiling the wort for banana wine is generally similar to mashing malt for beer, only keeping the exact temperature pauses is not so critical here.

3. We add the rest of the water to the wort that has cooled to room temperature, leave it overnight, covered with a towel, and then filter it in any convenient way, carefully squeezing out the remnants of the pulp and peel. It will be much easier to do this than in the previous recipe, because enzymes have already done the main work for us.

4. Pour the liquid into the fermenter, add yeast and top dressing for them, mix well, put the bottle under a water seal in a warm place for 5-10 days, at the end of fermentation, drain the wine from the sediment through a tube and move it to another, smaller fermenter, which we rearrange in cool place for another three months.

Then everything is done in exactly the same way as in the first recipe – periodic decanting, stabilization at will, bottling, aging for at least six months. And then – pure pleasure! It is not easy to make banana wine at home, especially according to the second recipe – but we will master a completely new technology that will give not only an excellent drink, but also a valuable experience, and an undeniable reason for pride in front of our fellow winemakers!