banana flovouring in beer

[BIGTRACTOR]

i'm thinking of trying to imitate a banana ale by brewing a lager kit, such as coopers with ale yeast and adding some banana flavouring (the missus is in love eith the stuff). i've read through the other posts on banana beer, but noone seems to have had much success. i know its a bit of a cheat but do you think adding a couple of the small bottles of banana flavouring into a brew (once transferred into the keg) would be a good idea, or am i barking up the wrong banana tree !!

[sparky Paul]

I'd thought about that myself - You can get a Banana liqueur flavouring from home brew suppliers, and there's no reason why you couldn't try it in a single pint first...

I might stick a bottle on the list for the next order.

[BIGTRACTOR]

cheers guys, will have a little dabble i think and i'll let you know how i get on.

[Stonch]

Tried the Caledonian Brewery's banana effort last night - quite like it actually. Its good to experiment - its what makes the likes of we Brits and the Belgians better brewers than the Germans, who are restricted by their nonsensical purity laws.

When we ordered some equipment from HomebrewUK, a John Bull Bitter one can kit was thrown in. Any ideas on a decent flavouring we could chuck in to hopefully make something fun?

[BIGTRACTOR]

i'm having a bit of trouble deciding what to use to flavour my banana beer.
i did a telfords lager kit, with 1kg light spraymalt and 250g brewers sugar and its finished at around 1.014. its a nice light ale type drink ideal for a little banana flavour i reckon. its ready for kegging, but i havent got any flavouring yet. i've looked at the prestige and condessa essences, but because they are meant to flavour spirits, would one be strong enough to flavour 40 pints of beer? or would i need a few?

my wife says she used to buy cheap banana flavourings from the supermarket, along with the vanilla and raspberry etc, but for the life of me i can't find any.

any suggestions most welcome, cheers

[sparky Paul]

i've looked at the prestige and condessa essences, but because they are meant to flavour spirits, would one be strong enough to flavour 40 pints of beer? or would i need a few?

I would have thought one would be enough, you are looking for the same strength of flavour as you'd expect in a liquor.

Most of the spirit flavourings are for a 5 litre batch, as said previously, so are we talking one per 5 litres of beer? Could get expensive...

Going off at a tangent a little, I've been reading Graham Wheeler's 'Home Brewing' book, and he suggests adding pulped fruit to the secondary, i.e. after initial fermentation, at the rate of 150-200g per litre, that's around 4Kg of pulped fruit to 5 gallons of a fairly light beer, something like a pale ale. He goes on to say that you should then leave the beer to finish fermenting the fruit out for at least a month before racking.

He suggests sanitising the fruit is best achieved by pasteurising the pulped fruit - covering with boiled water and leaving to cool, before adding to the beer. You can also add Pectolytic Enzyme to avoid any pectin haze.

There's quite a few suggested methods, and I've tried to pick the bones out of the information in the book, but that's basically the jist of it. I might have a go at it when I have a bit more of a beer stock on, and if I can find some cheap bananas. If you need 4Kg of pulp, that's probably 5Kg+ of bananas, so I can imagine the looks I'm gonna get buying 12lb of bananas in Morrison's...

[BIGTRACTOR]

i've just kegged my brew, i bought a small bottle of banana essence from the HB shop (£2) and it wasn't really bananery enough to flavour 40 pints so i chucked in a 500ml bottle of crusha banana milkshake flavouring as well, i know its early days but a crafty taste semed to be just what i wanted, a nice banana aroma and a hint of banana in the aftertaste, not too overpowering. Only thing is the crusha stuff was cloudy so i may have trouble clearing, although i added a sachet of gelatine and will try to leave for at least a month.

i'll keep you posted !

[BIGTRACTOR]

i wouldn't reccommend adding milkshake flavouring to beer ! it's not undrinkable but has an annoying chemical taste to it. think i was a bit heavy handed too, maybe a third of a bottle of crusha and it might have been better. So a lesson learnt

it is however, quite pleasant when mixed half and half with some nelsons revenge, so all is not lost. although a couple pints is enough!

how long will beer keep in the keg, byt the way? i got a feeling the banana beer is gonna last some time

[Ross]

How about adding some real bananas...

i'm just about to keg this one

Banana Amber
American Amber Ale
Type: All Grain
Date: 1/06/2007
Batch Size: 27.00 L
Brewer: Ross
Boil Size: 35.31 L
Boil Time: 90 min Brewhouse Efficiency: 85.0

Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.20 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 63.7 %
1.00 kg Munich Malt II Dark (17.7 EBC) Grain 19.9 %
0.30 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3.9 EBC) Grain 6.0 %
0.25 kg Caraaroma (256.1 EBC) Grain 5.0 %
0.25 kg Carared (Weyermann) (47.3 EBC) Grain 5.0 %
0.02 kg Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (1000.8 EBC) Grain 0.4 %
45gm hopburst mix 15 mins
60 gm hopburst mix 5 mins
60 gm hopburst mix 20 minaroma steep-
1.00 tsp Table Salt (Boil 90.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
4.50 kg Banana flesh (Primary 5.0 days) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale/Windsor Yeast-Ale

Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.8 %
Bitterness: 38.5 IBU
Est Color: 23.7 EBC

Cheers Ross

i know this is a kit thread, but the principle is the same - i add the bananas just as primary ferment is finishing.

[BIGTRACTOR]

thanks mate, will give it a go sometime soon.

[guest5234]

fruit flavored beer come on guys...we are British.

[EYE JAY]

fruit flavored beer come on guys...we are British.

fruit flavoured beer
I make that pimms o'clock

[Ross]

fruit flavored beer come on guys...we are British.

- It was your Bananabread Bitter that first inspired me...

cheers Ross

[eskimobob]

Bump thread...

How about adding some real bananas...

How did this turn out Ross?

My sister in law has just given up smoking and I've said I'll brew a batch of Banana beer for her (her favourite beer) in time for her birthday at the end of April if she has not started smoking again.

Having read through the various Banana related posts on the forum, the options seem to be:

1) Add mashed up bananas to the primary
2) Add a banana essence to the finished beer

What do you all think about adding dried banana chips to the actual mash? I guess I really ought to ask PoP about this

[bconnery]

Having tasted Ross's banana beer mentioned there I can tell you it turned out very nicely.
Very banana but with a nice malt background...
Many people hated it but it came within a whisker of getting best of show in a state comp...
I know he's also just put down another attempt at getting even closer to Wells Bananabread Bitter...