Beers", I read a recipe for a banana beer. Seemed interesting, but not enough that I would act on it. Recently I had Well's Banana Bread Beer, and holy shit was it tasty! Additionally, on the Beer Advocate Homebrew forum, someone was asking about making a Spongebob Ale. A lot of people were pointing towards some sort of a pineapple beer, or using Citra hops which give a bit of a pineapple taste and aroma. So, I've decided to whip all of this stuff together and make a German style Hefeweizen with bananas, some hefe yeast to add to the banana flavor, citrus hops to give a little bit of pineapple flavor and aroma, throw in some sweet & bitter orange peel (which I use in my Wit), and top if off with a slice of orange when served. Let's brew!Recipe:
OG: 1051
FG: 1009
ABV: 5.47%
IBU: 16.8
SRM: 4.2
5# Pale 2 Row
5# Malted Wheat
3/4# Pilsner 2 Row
3/4# Flaked Wheat
1/2# rice hulls
1oz Hallertau (4%) (60 min boil)
1oz Citra (11%) (flame out aroma)
1oz sweet orange peel (10 min to go)
1oz bitter orange peel (10 min to go)
4# banana (pre-peeled) for primary
2# banana (pre-peeled) for secondary
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephaner
3/28 BREWDAY:
Poland Spring Water this time... 5.3 pH
Mash water: 3.6 gallons/14 qts @ 165, target temp of 152 for 60 minutes
No mash out
Sparge water: 5 gallons/? @ 178
Hitting my strike temp is tough. I threw my mash water in the cooler @ 165. Left it in the cooler for about 5 minutes, and it dipped down to 160. I doughed in, and it sunk to 145 in most parts, 150 in high parts. I took out 2 qts, boiled, added back in and everything was around 150. Took another 2 qts out, boiled, added back in and hit about 152. Mashed for 60 minutes.
First runnings -
Second runnings -
Total gravity - - booooo
Boiled for 60 minutes, added 1 oz. Hallertauer pellets at the start of the boil, added 1 oz. sweet and 1 oz. bitter orange peels with 10 minutes left in the boil, added 1 oz. of Citra whole hops at flame out.
During boil, I weighed out 4pounds of bananas, peeled them, sliced them, and added to the primary. Once wort was cooled, I filtered it on top of the bananas, gave it a good shake, and pitched the yeast starter. And off we go!
4/2 RACK TO SECONDARY:
The initial fermentation slowed down Thursday night into Friday, so I decided not to wait too long and get the beer off of the first dose of bananas. I weighed out 2 pounds of bananas, peeled, sliced, and chucked into the secondary, and then racked the beer onto the bananas. The gravity was at 5.5 Brix/1.009... whoa! Not bad :-) I also probably won't keep this going too long, hoping to bottle it soon too.
4/11 BOTTLED:
Racked to bottles - 4.5 Gallons = 24 500mL bottles and 11 12oz. bottles. Brix was 5.5 still. Taste was a little funky... hardly any banana flavor at all which I can't seem to understand, had kind of a bite to it like cider, and it had alcohol warmth which seems a little strange if this is only about 5.5%ABV. Oh well, they're bottled so the time is near... 2 weeks hopefully!
4/18 TASTING: Ernie and Dave came over to brew an Octoberfest, while we were wrapping up, I decided to try one of these even though it had only been in bottle for a week. It carbonated just fine, and we all liked it. Ernie asked if I had submitted it to the homebrew comp (deadline to submit was the day before), and I said no. He said "too bad", which coming from a certified beer judge, I'll take that as a nice compliment. I think the hops were a good idea but I wouldn't use them next time, or I'd at least cut back on them. It definitely masks the hefe & banana flavors.
4/23: (took above pic) Took 6 bottles in to work to pass out... ended up only passing one out and bringing the rest home. I knew this would go fast and I wanted to salvage as many of the bottles as I could. This is definitely turning out nice, still wishing I hadn't hopped it that much, but the banana aroma is much better now. Very very tasty!
5/7: Took a bottle over to my buddy's for a beer tasting. The banana aroma was awesome. Everyone seemed to like it. I am definitely very happy with how this one turned out. I'd chalk it up to the best all grain batch I've brewed yet, and probably one of the top 3 that I've made ever (pumpkin ale & wit being the top 2). I think the hops are important to have in there to some degree, they definitely balance out the bananas. I just need to cut back the amount next time.
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