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My first look into this site and a novice at brewing, at the moment I have only tinkered with replacing honey with sugars with the shop bought beer kits in the can, all the experiments have worked really well so far.

I've been wondering for a while now if I can add mashed bananas in a muslin bag to the fermenter for a 1 week in the fermenter brew? if so do I need to adjust the sugars to suit?

cheers Paul

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  • There's an African beer made with half bananas and half millet (a grain commonly fed to pet birds here in the US). I can't vouch for the flavor, but it sounds interesting enough!
    – GHP
    Commented Dec 2, 2011 at 19:27
  • I have a recipe for that somewhere. It's on my ever-growing list of things to try :)
    – JoeFish
    Commented Dec 5, 2011 at 15:36
  • I havent tried bananas, I usually use peaches, but bananas are my next batch
    – user2813
    Commented Nov 2, 2012 at 23:48

5 Answers 5

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I've used bananas while brewing before.

In my experience, it's hard to get any flavor out of them. Fermented bananas, don't leave much banana flavor. This is very similar to how wine, doesn't really taste like grapes.

If you just want the flavor from them (and not the fermentable sugars) here's what I'd suggest. I'd mash & sanitize them.. put them in a grain bag... then add them to the secondary. Sample every other other day.. remove them after a week. If you still want more flavor, get fresh bananas and repeat the process.

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    What about to cook the banana making a caramelized cream of them ? Maybe fermentable compounds are 'Maillarded' maintaining some flavor in beer.
    – Luciano
    Commented Feb 12, 2015 at 14:00
  • good idea @Luciano! I'd be curious how that turns out.
    – Adam Kalnas
    Commented Feb 12, 2015 at 21:25
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Sounds yummy :) I might boil the mashed 'nanners with some water to sterilize them first. Raw fruit can harbor beer-spoiling bacteria. If not boil, at least hold at pasteurizing temps for a time. According to MicroMatic, for beer...

The process involves running the package through a hot water spray (approximately 140 degrees F) for two to three minutes.

I would probably hold it at 150-160F for 10 minutes for my peace of mind.

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Just get a high fruit ester producing yeast to help with the banana flavor but this will be hard to control at first but it will taste more like banana than real bananas might in the end. But I have never tried the brew that you guys have talked about here.

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bananas are a decent source of dextrins but they're not going to leave much in the way of flavor in your beer unless you use a lot of them. They will help give your beer some more body though.

I usually toss a banana into my fermenting wines to add some body to the finished wine (especially if the wine is made from canned concentrate).

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My banana wine smells and tastes of bananas. Use the fruit from 12anda couple of skins. Clear as a bell, and can light the bbq with it. Blinding hangover per bottle too!

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    Welcome to Homebrewing Stack Exchange. Can you add some more information to your answer about how this might translate to beer? For example, are you suggesting using 12 bananas in the beer or is that what goes into your banana wine? What volume of wine/beer is that quantity of bananas for? Some clarification on these points would help other users better understand what you're recommending and how they can use/alter it for their purposes.
    – thesquaregroot ♦
    Commented Nov 30, 2016 at 4:23

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