View Full Version : Question about Banana Wine or Spirits
edwmax
12-06-2016, 04:53 AM
Since there is another thread asking about Rum this brings my question.
The Banana pstem has a lot of sweet water. When cutting the pstem back for the winter or collecting the pstem after producing a bunch, has anyone used the juice to make wine or spirits?
I think it would be easy to crush the pstem with a cane mill or cook out the juice to ferment.
CraigSS
12-06-2016, 07:54 AM
Why did you not post this sooner?
Would have helped me allot when I changed my Arboretum from citrus to Banana's. My wife would have jumped on board much sooner.
Craig:08:
edwmax
12-06-2016, 08:38 AM
I only realized the possibility recently; it is cane syrup season in south Georgia. I have long been aware of the large amount of juice content of the pstem. My hands have been sticky from the sweet sap. The pstem constancy is not a lot different from that of sugar cane, only it holes a lot more juice.
After posting above, I see there are a number of topics on the forum about banana wine and beer (??). But these all referred to the use of the fruit. Non, utilized the juice of the pstem. ... I'm thinking a resource and use of the pstem juice is being over looked when discarding the pstem. .... Banana Wine; Banana liquor/Rum; Banana Syrup are possibilities.
Gabe15
12-06-2016, 02:49 PM
I don't know of any use of the sap to make wine, I don't think it's sweet enough, maybe if you boiled it down a lot, but there's not a lot of sugar in there, and loads of bitter and astringent compounds and latex which is what makes it sticky. Some species are varieties are not so off putting, and are consumed as a beverage of sorts, but not fermented into a wine.
Wine can be made relatively easily from the fruit however, I used to make it a lot in Hawaii with my extra fruit. There is a long history and culture of banana beer/wine in East Africa, and there are also modern distilled products as well.
meizzwang
12-06-2016, 07:16 PM
I had some concentrated banana sap get on my hand this past weekend and didn't think anything of it. It slightly burned, but I washed it off with water, thinking that was good enough. the next morning, I woke up with a full body rash. My hand was completely swollen and feet also started to swell before taking some antihistamines.
I then used some rubbing alcohol and got all the sap off, it seems washing several times with soap still wasn't good enough.
Maybe I'm just super-sensitive, but I suspect there's a lot of secondary compounds in that sap, some of which may be toxic to humans. It's probably the most concentrated in cooler climates when growth slows....I also think the recent increase of P,K in the soil (theoretically, this is done to increase cold tolerance) may have triggered the plants to increase the concentration of solutes in the sap. Extreme astringent tasting plants typically is a warning sign to animals not to eat it.
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