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  • Banana beer

    Hey everyone!
    I hope the title itself represents the challenge.
    I have a client who is interested in manufacturing banana beer like Well's or Mongozo (Africa) since he has acres of plantation and wishes to use overripe and ripe bananas.
    Now after all the research I have done I figured it isn't easy to process banana like other fruits certainly.
    It can be pureed but juicing requires enzymes and heat before it can be filtered into a clear aseptic juice.

    For a more economical approach, I was thinking if the banana puree can be step mashed(50% barley malt and 50% banana puree).?
    This will help convert all the starch if present and then extracted using a MASH FILTER?
    Question is will this mash get pumped into the mash filter and would the extraction of wort go smoothly?
    Ideas are welcome.

    Thanks,
    Amit

  • #2
    Banana purée in a mash sounds like a really bad idea in my opinion. I brew a pumpkin ale with pumpkin purée and have the slowest run off. I would try in secondary and freeze banana cut into chunks. Put the frozen banana in mesh bags and cold crash or filter.


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    • #3
      Here is the thing about bananas. They will convert their starch to sugar as they ripen. From as much as 70-80% starch in a raw banana to as low as 1% in a fully ripened banana. Since the sugar content is mostly Fructose, Sucrose, and Glucose (like most fruit) there should be no need to mash these for starch conversion if they are ripe. The problem in the mashing would likely come from the pectin, which in bananas actually has some water solubility. Again, the riper the banana the less pectin you will probably find. The pectin will "blind" the mash by causing colloidal suspensions to form. It will also cause your end product to be cloudy.

      To avoid the pectin issue, you can use a pectinase enzyme, and if mashing any unripe bananas you might want to add some alpha amylase enzyme. 50% barley should have enough alpha amylase present to convert starch in the bananas depending on the level of starch present.

      Mash filter would increase your odds of success, but without the enzyme addition you will likely see blinding in the mash filter as well.

      Let us know if you attempt the brew, I would be very interested in how it works out!

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      • #4
        I am interested in this regarding your outcome with flavor / aroma and quantities used.

        I recently brewed an English Brown (6% abv, 30IBU, plan on it being about FG=1012), and added 10 rippened and pasteurized bananas on day 3 of fermentation, for what will be 4 gallons of bottling volume of beer. The yeast is LAIII @ 68 F. Stoked to see what happens but my hunch is that I didn't use enough bananas.
        Ryan
        Viridian Brewing Company
        [Brewery-In-Planning]

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