Banana Wine | Recipe, Benefits & common questions answered!

Banana wine is a sweet-smelling homemade beverage that comes with a unique taste, a light fruit flavor, and in a color similar to that of honey. The main ingredient for a banana wine recipe is ripe bananas. Depending on the type of recipe you are using, banana wine can be made either sweet or dry. Bananas being some of the sweetest fruits, they are packed with sugars, which is very much needed when it comes to the wine making process. Only a few additions are usually required to make its acidity level balance. Bananas are usually a perfect match with lots of other types of fruits, making the possibilities endless and only limited by your own imagination or creativity.

Banana wine and banana beer are two completely different beverages, however banana wine comes with great cultural significance and history in areas such as East Africa, South India, Central America, and the Philippines. Just like any other wine, banana wine gets better with age. And with time you will get that golden crystal clear liquid with all its finesse, however when aging banana wine, always keep it bottled up in a cool dark place.

The process used to make banana wine is completely different from the traditional wine making process, mainly because bananas do not easily produce the juice or any other essential substances needed to make wine. But despite all that, anyone can easily master the banana wine making process. The sweetness level on your banana wine can vary depending on the strain of yeast and the amount of sugar you use.

Can wine be made from bananas?

Wine can be made from bananas, after which is then called banana wine. The best thing about making banana wine is that you do not have to wait for the bananas to be in season. Since bananas are usually relatively cheap and available throughout the year, you can make banana wine any time of the year. When making banana wine, patience is a virtue you must possess, as it takes a relatively long time to become perfectly clear and ready to consume.

What does banana wine taste like?

Despite what the name suggests Banana Wine does not taste anything like a ripe or unripe banana, however it does taste delicious, it’s color very clear with a golden hue. In most cases, you could have a taste of this wine and not be able to know that it’s made out of fermented bananas. However for the experienced wine maker, with certain banana wine recipes it will be very obvious that it’s made out of bananas, mainly because of the heavy banana aroma, with the banana flavor usually returning over time with aging.

Does banana wine taste good?

Banana wine tastes fantastic, it’s a sweet tasting and smelling beverage that comes with a light fruit flavor and honey color. Banana wine does not have a over powering banana flavor. As the name suggests, it’s main ingredients are ripe bananas and for that it can be made sweet or dry, that all depends on the type of recipe you are using. As we already know bananas are some of the sweetest fruits on this earth, mainly because they are packed with different sugars. This sweetness tends to reciprocate up to the wine giving you a very memorable wine experience. However since bananas pair perfectly well with any other kind of fruit or spice, the possibilities are endless, you can always fine tune the taste to be up to your preference.

Banana Wine Benefits

Digestion

Banana wine, due to its high fiber content, possesses many health benefits, such as helping to ease the digestion process by feeding your gut friendly bacterial in your intestines.

Weight loss

Even though no study can directly link banana wine to aiding weight loss, several banana attributes makes it a weight loss friendly food, for example, bananas have very few calories with an average banana having 100 calories. However, consuming high fiber products such as banana wine has been repeatedly linked to lower body weight and may also help reduce appetite by slowing down the stomach emptying process.

Moderates blood sugar level

Bananas are also known to contain nutrients that help moderate blood sugar levels, which is definitely reciprocated when it comes to banana wine. With a glycemic index average of 51, banana wine helps moderate blood sugar levels, especially after meals. This unique wine is also loaded with potassium, manganese, and vitamins for this reason, it has really become a favorite among health-conscious people

Anti-depression

Due to the high levels of tryptophan, bananas are always the best food of choice that’s recommended when one is dealing with mild feelings of depression. Tryptophan converts into serotonin, which acts as a mood-enhancing neurotransmitter in the brain. In addition to that, bananas contain vitamin B6 and magnesium that’s known to help with relaxation and sleep. In fact, it’s even better for anyone who is suffering from anxiety mainly due to adrenal fatigue.

Moderates blood pressure

The potassium in bananas are mineral electrolyte that helps keep electricity flowing through one’s body and also the heart beating. This will help to protect the entire cardiovascular system that will help fight against high blood pressure. Also due to the high levels of antioxidant phenolic compounds are helpful in preventing kidney cancer.

Increased metabolism

Bananas are also known to help boost the metabolism rate, which improves the body’s ability to detoxify and governs the body’s inflammatory response. With the abundance of non-digestive carbohydrates, bananas tend to encourage digestion-friendly probiotics, which in return enhance the body’s ability to absorb calcium. This process is exemplified after fermentation.

Banana Wine Recipe

About our Banana Wine Recipe

Homemade banana wine is a fragrant beverage with honey color, light fruit flavor, and overall quite unique taste. The cooking technology is different from the traditional winemaking because bananas don’t give out juice and other substances that easy. But even newbies will be able to master this banana wine recipe.

You’ll need any ripe bananas to make this wine. You can use fruits with blackened peel but make sure that the pulp is untainted and has no mold. In order to avoid infecting the wine with pathogenic microorganisms, you should sterilize all of the vessels with boiling water and wipe them with a clean dry towel or use cleaning and sanitizing tools and chemicals.

How to make Banana Wine

Equipment:

Ingredients:

Bananas – 5kg
Water – 10 liters
Sugar – 2kg
Citric acid – 7 teaspoons (35 grams)
Wine Yeast

Citric acid is required to increase the acidity and promote glucose breakdown as this, in turn, promotes fermentation, makes it tastier, elongates shelf life, and prevents some wine diseases. To start fermentation you’ll need wine yeast (other types won’t work) or a raisin ferment (you can also use fresh berries).

Directions:

If you don’t have wine yeast then 3-5 days before treating the bananas you should prepare a ferment from unwashed raisins (or raspberries, currants, cherries, etc.): put raisins or berries into a jar, add 25 grams of sugar and 250 ml of unboiled water, and stir. Then cover with cheesecloth and place in a dark room with a room temperature. The ferment should be ready in 2-3 days–you’ll notice foam forming, light sour odor, and a hissing sound.
Peel the bananas. Mince the pulp using a meat grinder or a wooden stick until you get a puree.

You shouldn’t make wine with banana peels because they are usually treated with toxic chemicals to elongate shelf life.

Mix 5 liters of water, 1kg of sugar, banana puree and citric acid in an enamel cooking pot. Bring the mixture to a state of homogeneous mass.
Warm up the must to 55-58°C and maintain this temperature range, simmering it for 60 minutes. Stir from time to time to ensure that the gruel remains homogeneous, and there are no lumps at the bottom.

It’s very important to keep the temperature below 60°C. Otherwise, ferments will break up and fructose will cease to produce. Thus you’ll waste some of your raw materials.

Cooldown the must to 25-27°C. Add the remaining water and wine yeast and stir. Cover with cheesecloth and leave it for 4 days in a dark room with a room temperature. Stir it with clean hands or a wooden stick every 12 hours. In 3-8 hours you’ll see foam on its surface, and you’ll notice a smell of fermentation.

Banana Wine Fermenting Under a Medical Glove

After 4 days filter the must through 4-5 layers of cheesecloth, squeeze the pulp, and drain all of the fluids. The husks can be thrown out. Add 500 grams of sugar to the liquid and stir.
Pour the banana juice into a fermentation vessel. Fill it up to a maximum of 60-65% of the volume. Install an airlock of any design on the neck of the container.

Warning! During the first 6-10 days of fermentation, banana wine produces a lot of foam. That’s why I recommend filling the vessel only to half or less.

Place the container in a dark place (or cover it) with a stable temperature of 18-27°C and leave it till fermentation ends.
5 days after the airlock was installed add the last 500 grams of sugar. For this, pour 250 ml of the must through a tube into another vessel, dissolve sugar in it, and pour the syrup back into the fermentation vessel. Install the airlock again.
Depending on yeast and temperature homemade banana wine ferments for 30-60 days. You can tell that the fermentation process has stopped when the airlock is no longer emitting gas (or the glove is deflated), and there’s a layer of sediment at the bottom. Gently decant the fermented wine into another container.

If the fermentation process lasts for more than 50 days, the wine should be decanted into another container and then put under the air lock again to ferment at the same temperature in order to avoid letting it become bitter.

Taste the wine and add more sugar to sweeten the taste (optional). You can also increase ABV by adding vodka or alcohol in amounts of 2-15% of the wine volume. Increasing the ABV prolongs storage life but makes the taste harsher.
Fill the aging vessels with the wine to the brim, so that there is no contact with oxygen. Seal them tightly. If you added sugar at the previous step keep the vessels under airlocks for the first 7-10 days in case of repeated fermentation.
Transfer the vessels for aging to a fridge or cellar with a temperature of 5-16°C. Leave them for at least 4 months (preferably 7-8 months). Aging significantly improves the taste.
Filter the wine by pouring it through a tube from one container to another (first every 10-15 days, then you can do it less often).
Banana wine is considered ready when there’s no more sediment build-up. Wine can be bottled and corked now. 9-12% ABV. Shelf life is up to 3 years.

Related Questions About Banana Wine

Can bananas ferment into alcohol?

Bananas will ferment into alcohol, so long as the right conditions are provided for yeast to survive and thrive. Yeast convert the sugars contained in the bananas into alcohol. For example in Tanzania, peeled, mashed, ripe bananas are fermented to create alcohol on a commercial level. With the help of yeast, bananas are put in large fermentation tanks for about 15 to 20 days and it ferments into alcohol. The fermented liquid is diluted using sterilized water, its then bottled and shipped for distribution.

Banana wine alcohol percentage

The alcohol percentage (ABV) of Banana Wine is between 9-12%. The range is dependent on the efficiency of the fermentation process during making of the wine.

How much alcohol is in a banana?

On average there is 0.5 grams of alcohol in a small peeled banana. Studies have shown that for every 100 grams of ripe banana, the ethanol (alcohol) content to be about 0.5 grams.

Banana wine fermentation time?

Banana wine fermentation takes between 30-60 days. Depending on the type of banana, temperature and yeast used. Fermentation is a chemical process through which molecules such as glucose are broken down anaerobically, in simpler terms fermentation is the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer a process that’s over 10,000 years old.

Yeast used for banana wine should be?

The yeast used for banana wine is wine yeast. The second option if you don’t have wine yeast is to create a raisin ferment. The type of wine yeast you use to make your banana wine will always impact the alcohol content of the wine. Yeast organisms are known to possess unlimited capacity to process any type of sugar into alcohol. At a certain point the fermenting wine becomes too high in alcohol and the yeast is unable to survive and instead dies off making the whole fermentation complete.

Different types of yeast usually have different alcohol tolerance capabilities within their environment. Certain types of yeast will be able to survive in an environment with high amounts of alcohol content, and instead, they will continue to produce alcohol for longer periods as compared to others.

The type of wine yeast you use will always depend on what’s on your mind as the final byproduct. In case you want some sweet wine with a low ABV level, you should choose the type of wine yeast with a lower alcohol tolerance capability and add more sugar. On the other hand, if you are looking to make some dry wine with a low ABV, you should still choose yeast with a low tolerance of alcohol but don’t add extra amounts of sugar.
In case you want some sweet wine with a high ABV you should use extra sugar and yeast with a high alcohol tolerance and be able to back sweeten it. If you want some dry wine with a high ABV, you should use a fair amount of sugar and also some yeast with a high alcohol tolerance capability.