# Banana Kiwi recipe



## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

Hi, 

I've been lurking for a while, been making kit wines and am interested in making a fruit wine.

Most recipes for banana wine seem to include grape concentrate, which I don't have access to right now. No raisins either.

What I do have is about 25lbs of bananas, 6lbs of kiwis and about 20 liters of carboy space.

I looked on the web and couldn't find a wine recipe, but it seems to be a common dessert blend.

Anybody have any recommendations or an experienced guess for a recipe. 

thanks
Bill


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## Tom (Jun 29, 2009)

That should make a 5 gallon batch.
Destem and slice strawberries and put in a 5gallon cheese cloth paint strainer in a 7.5 gallon fermenting bucket. Peel and slice the kiwi and add to the strawberries. Add enough sugar (around 10#'s) to bring the gravity to 1.085.
Add k-meta and pectic enzyme and 5-6 tsp of acid blend. Wait 24 hours then add Cote des Blancs yeast.
Ferment dry. After you add the fining (k-meta and Sorbate you may consider to back sweeten


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

Hi, Tom

I have bananas, no strawberries. Can I follow that recipe substituting bananas for strawberries.

Cheers Bill


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## Tom (Jun 29, 2009)

LOL !!
Yes but DOUBLE the acid blend


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## Tom (Jun 29, 2009)

Did you look at these recipies?
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=2


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

Well my wife just fetched the bananas home ond there's about 40lbs. (still only 6lbs of kiwi).
Will more bananas in a 20liter batch make better wine, or are we talking too much of a good thing.
Cheers
Bill


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

you can freeze the excess bananas for use at a later stage.. Or just make a banana wine with it.. we have three good recipes for banana wine in the recipe forum,

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

St Allie said:


> you can freeze the excess bananas for use at a later stage.. Or just make a banana wine with it.. we have three good recipes for banana wine in the recipe forum,
> 
> Allie



So I take it more is not better.
I've checked out the recipes but like most they call for concentrated grape juice. Not available where I live, or raisins, 2hrs away and not much choice. So hoping to make something that isn't a total loss without adding any of these 2 ingrediants. 
Hoping the 6lbs of kiwi might help.

Cheers
Bill


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## Wade E (Jun 29, 2009)

With that much I would probaly make an all banana btach and a smaller mixed batch with bananas and Kiwis. I would probably do a 3 gallon batch with12 lbs of bananas and the 6lbs of Kiwi. I would add around 3 tsp of acid blend also. I wouldnt use concentrate on a banana wine as the bananas have enough body themselves.


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

Bill,


I have a couple of recipes here with raisins in and no concentrate..you could use a substitute for the raisins if you are keen to go ahead?

What dried fruit have you got in the cupboard.. if you're willing to experiment.. dates are good for body in wine.. inexpensive too.

Allie


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

There is also a recipe here..

http://homewinery.info/viewarticle.php?id=28

for a kiwifruit melomel that you could cut down to size , no raisins or concentrate required.. and you can play with the sugar content a bit .. if you don't have quite enough honey on hand.. you could substitute some brown sugar instead... ( of course it's still a melomel as long as there is honey in it..)

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

St Allie said:


> Bill,
> 
> 
> I have a couple of recipes here with raisins in and no concentrate..you could use a substitute for the raisins if you are keen to go ahead?
> ...



Hi, Allie

No dried fruits in the house, but I can get some dates in town.
Tell me more. Would I use a similar amount of dates, ie substitute 1lb of dates for 1lb of raisins.

Cheers Bill


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

hehehe.. what do you have in the house then?

frozen.. or tinned blackberries( in syrup)? I'm looking for sweet ( sugar content) and something to give it more flavour.. 

I would substitute the same weight in dates .. or you can use figs or prunes.. whatever is cheaper or that you have a preference for really. a couple of cans of blackberries in syrup, is always handy to have in the pantry, for last minute substitutions as well.

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

St Allie said:


> hehehe.. what do you have in the house then?
> 
> frozen.. or tinned blackberries( in syrup)? I'm looking for sweet ( sugar content) and something to give it more flavour..
> 
> Allie



Unfortunatly not much.

I'm pretty much stuck with the bananas 40lbs, kiwis 6lb, the dates I can get in town tommorrow, and lots of white sugar.
Oh, and about 6lbs of peach and nectarines, but from what I've read they don't have a lot of flavour.

Bill


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

I'm just thinking that the kiwifruit will make a nice wine on it's own if you substitute banana juice for the raisins.. it'll be a light table white though.. and would need backsweetening..

depends on whether you want to wait til tomorrow and get your dates or not.. you're going to need the dried fruit for the banana wine though.. especially that volume of it.

hmm and I just read that you only have 20 litres of carboy space? so some of this fruit is going into the freezer?..

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

St Allie said:


> I'm just thinking that the kiwifruit will make a nice wine on it's own if you substitute banana juice for the raisins.. it'll be a light table white though.. and would need backsweetening..
> 
> depends on whether you want to wait til tomorrow and get your dates or not.. you're going to need the dried fruit for the banana wine though.. especially that volume of it.
> 
> Allie



I'll wait till tomorrow and get the dates. Great tip, thanks.
Now with the dates I'm wondering if I need kiwi in the mix or not.

Yes I'll freeze what I don't use.

Bill


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

hehehe peaches and nectarines? They make a lovely wine on their own..

it sounds like you are going to have to make good use of the freezer and maybe pick up an extra carboy..


kiwi will add some acid to it.. which is a good thing. 

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 29, 2009)

St Allie said:


> hehehe peaches and nectarines? They make a lovely wine on their own..
> 
> it sounds like you are going to have to make good use of the freezer and maybe pick up an extra carboy..
> 
> ...



OK, kiwis back in. I read somewhere that citric acid (kiwis) would be good with the mallic of the bananas, but have no experience making fruit wine.

Bill


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## St Allie (Jun 29, 2009)

hehehe..

it's pretty easy to make fruit wines.. they often take a bit longer til drinkability though.

Allie


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## canoe (Jun 30, 2009)

Uh oh.

So I came up with a concoction. 11kg bananas, sliced, simmered skins on and strained), 1.5kg kiwi, 1kg raisins. (found some). 20 liters total.
I used a recipe on J Kellers site with a similar mix (no kiwis), but more raisins. He used 3lbs sugar for 1 USgal (3.78 liter) mix. So a little over 5x the quantity for 20 liters comes to over 15lbs sugar.
So I though I would kick of with 6 kg suger, approx 13.2lbs and take it from there.
Right now at 90 degrees F I have a SG of 1.15. You couldn't drown in that primary if you tried.
It can't be just the sugar. Its got to be total dissolved or undissolved solid from the fruit causing this.
How do I measure/handle this. 

Cheers Bill


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## St Allie (Jul 1, 2009)

your hydrometer says what?

1.15?.. that's about 16% potential alcohol?.. are you sure? Ideally you want a reading of about 1.080 starting gravity for fruit wines or the finished wines have too much abv to be palatable.

Strain some of the must off.. enough to recheck the hydrometer reading. . Most of my recipes call for almost 3 pounds of sugar to a 4.5 to 5 litre gallon jar. We can fix it if we have to.. I just want you to double check your reading first.


Allie


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## canoe (Jul 1, 2009)

St Allie said:


> your hydrometer says what?
> 
> Allie



Strained some through a paint strainer bag this morning, 1.15.
My floating thermometer now floats horizontally instead of vertically.

I may of interpreted JK banana wine #1 heavy bodied recipe wrong.
It calls for 1USg of water. If you use a full gallon then add sugar and raisins you would have a lot more than 1gal total.
I went for 20 liters total. If I remember correctly the water I used would be about 15-16 liters. Which would leave me a few liters short.
Could be it.?
Any ideas.

Cheers Bill


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## St Allie (Jul 1, 2009)

canoe said:


> Strained some through a paint strainer bag this morning, 1.15.
> My floating thermometer now floats horizontally instead of vertically.
> 
> I may of interpreted JK banana wine #1 heavy bodied recipe wrong.
> ...



hehehe it's floating sideways?.. 

ok.. 

do you have a spare 1 gallon container anywhere?

I suggest you take a gallon ( 3.5 litres) of the mix out, top up with 2 litres of water and recheck the SG..that gives us an extra 1.5 litres of water that can be added if it's still too high... any excess wine must can be frozen and added to your next batch or simmered down into an F-pac to backsweeten this wine later.. so it won't be wasted. if we can get the SG down to 1.090 or just under, the wine will be a better finished alcohol level.

Allie


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## canoe (Jul 1, 2009)

St Allie said:


> hehehe it's floating sideways?..
> 
> ok..
> 
> ...


Hi, Allie.

Been messing about with it. So I'll tell you where I am right now.

According to the SG tables I have here JKs recipe was for a fairly high alcohol wine anyway. So assuming I should have used a full 20L of water anyway I added another 5 liters. That got me to just under 1.12. Still high. The must is quite opaque lots of solids. I'm wondering if its all sugar, or is some of the SG comming from other stuff in the must.
I do have some extra 4.5l jugs i can use, so could probably house about 25L in secondary.
According to my tables and winecalc 6kg sugar in 20l should have been way less than what I have. Maybe I have sweet bananas
I take it the only way to get the SG down is to dilute with water.?.

Bill


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## St Allie (Jul 1, 2009)

Often high alcohol wines are 'fed'.. the sugar goes in, in increments.. if you want a dessert wine.. that's how it is usually done with dessert fruit wines.

If you like a sweeter high alcohol wine, then leave it as it is.. otherwise we are going to have to dilute it down more.. adding an f-pac at the end will bring the flavour back up again..

Allie


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## canoe (Jul 1, 2009)

St Allie said:


> Often high alcohol wines are 'fed'.. the sugar goes in, in increments.. if you want a dessert wine.. that's how it is usually done with dessert fruit wines.
> 
> If you like a sweeter high alcohol wine, then leave it as it is.. otherwise we are going to have to dilute it down more.. adding an f-pac at the end will bring the flavour back up again..
> 
> Allie



By high alcohol I ment high for a fruit wine. 3lbs sugar in 1 usgal would be about 15%-16%.
I'll dilute, pitch the yeast and hope for the best.
Thanks for all your help.
So whats the moral of this story. Check your SG early to see how much sugar you are getting from your fruit.?\

Thaks Bill


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## St Allie (Jul 1, 2009)

canoe said:


> So whats the moral of this story. Check your SG early to see how much sugar you are getting from your fruit.?\
> 
> Thaks Bill




LOL!

If we have to turn this into a Disney moment..


I would say that your first fruit wine, taught you everything you needed to know about making fruit wines...

( winks)


(PS>>>please let me know if the yeast survives the sugar!!)

Allie


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## canoe (Jul 1, 2009)

St Allie said:


> LOL!
> 
> If we have to turn this into a Disney moment..
> 
> ...



I'm using lavin 118. From what I hear not much stops it.

I've decided to call this one Banana Hooch. I'll save the term wine for my next batch

Cheers Bill


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## St Allie (Jul 1, 2009)

Hahahahah!

very apt..

Allie


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