Sultana Banana Wine - What has Fermented the Fastest so far
5 Pounds Bananas Peeled (weight after peeling)
1 Tea bag
4.2 liters water (1 Gallon)
3 cups sugar
1 cup raisins
Juice of 1 Lemon
Juice of 1 Lime
Lalvin EC1118 Yeast
Yield = 3.5 Liters
200 Watt Stick Blender
Business end of Stick Blender
The primary fermenter was an 8 liter stainless steel stock pot. It was not quite large enough as it overflowed once the yeast got going. 3 inches of headroom was not enough.
I sterilized the stock pot by putting water in it, brought it to a boil and then discarded the water. I repeated this 3 times to get any 'flavor' out of the stock pot which had just been used to make turkey soup.
Put half the water, the sugar, the lemon juice and lime juice into the stock pot.
Use the stick blender to aerate, invert and blend the sugar. Let sit a couple of minutes, and then scoop the scum off the top. Your sugar might not throw up scum on the top.
Toss in the bananas and the raisins. Use the stick blender to atomize the bananas and raisins.
I used only half the water during the stick blendering phase, otherwise I would have sprayed banana bits all over the kitchen.
Through dumb beginner luck, the Raisins I used were seedless.
I had used some dark, organic raisins in another batch, but these had seeds. The rule of thumb is that seeds left too long in the primary fermenter add a nasty bitter taste.
Add the rest of the water, and take the stick blender to it. But only enough to make the final mixture the same consistency throughout.
I put the yeast into a measuring cup with 1/4 cup of water at room temperature and left for 15 minutes as per directions on the back of the yeast packet.
I started the yeast re-hydrating, and then began to make the banana/raisin brew. Unboiled banana is supposed to go 'bad' quickly, so I wanted the yeast ready to go as soon as the banana brew was ready.
I put the teabag in about 1/3 of a cup of boiling water right after starting the yeast.
The tea was for tannin, and added a nice bite to the banana / raisin brew. The resulting banana/raisin/tea mix was quite tasty and fairly sweet. It would have made a good beverage for a 5 year old's birthday party. Banana hyperactivity juice.
Everything was at 25 degrees Celsius.
I stirred the yeast / quarter cup water with a fork, and then poured it on top of the banana brew in the stock pot.
In less than 5 minutes, there were strong signs of the yeast going. In about an hour, the entire top of the stock pot was covered with yeast.
At this point I stirred the whole thing with a large slotted spoon to mix the yeast in well.
The banana forms quite a thick layer on top.
When you punch it down, the top layer reforms quickly. After about the third or forth punch down, all of the banana does not rise to the top anymore.
On day four, there were an incredible amount of fruit flies hovering about the brew.
On day 7, I skimmed off as much stuff as I could. Let sit a bit, and then skimmed off more.
Then I strained it through 2 layers of cheese cloth into a 4 liter jug.
It only yielded 3.5 liters, so there was quite a bit of empty space on top.
I added about 1/4 cup of sugar, on the theory that the yeast would generate enough C02 to keep the wine from oxidizing, but this was unnecessary and only increased the ferment time.
About 4 days later, the secondary started bubbling again, and bubbled for about another 5 days.
I thought this was because the yeast needed time respond to the new sugar and to multiply to large enough numbers.
But I have found that after racking in other batches, to the secondary, no matter what the ingredients, the yeast get pissed off and shut down for about 4 days and then start to bubble again. This seems to pretty consistent with and without sugar added to the secondary.
What was amazing, it that this wine was always clear. There never was any haze. The banana bits may float around, and it is a bit of a pain to get rid of them, but even after an hour, the wine was clear.
8 liter stock pot A bit too small
What does it taste like?
Like a white wine with a slight banana after taste. I cannot taste the lime. The wine tasted good every time it was sampled.
Even with sugaring the secondary, all fermenting was stopped at about 6 weeks and the wine was clear.
The bananas were 59 cents a pound. The lemons were 50 cents a piece. I used the lime because they were only 25 cents a peice and hoped they might add some variety to the flavor.
The raisins were light in color and very tasty, from bulk bins.
The bananas had about 40 percent of the skin covered with black spots when they were used.
I had bad luck finding bananas since. Quite a number of smelt of chemicals. Some never did ripen, and the browning did not appear normal.
It is tough to find cheap fresh fruit this far north. But they seem to almost give bananas away, so it was an obvious choice for experimentation.
Even though total liquid was about 4.5 liters, it only yielded 3.5 liters. The banana and raisins soaked up quite a bit.
As for fast fermenting, 1 gallons batches seem to go a lot faster than 5 gallon batches.
Somewhere between 7% and 10%, fermentation starts to take a lot longer. Where, I have no clue.
I need a lab.
Oh, and Santa, if you are reading this, a couple of hydrometers would make good stocking stuffers.
And if the sleigh is not too crowded, I think I really, really need a vacuum pump.