I'm not sure if anyones done it or not, but I got the idea from the show moonshiners to try a banana mash. I get them for free so it was worth it. I mashed in by mashing up 33 bananas and put them in about 150 degree water for two hours. I strained out all the banana mush and stirred in some extra sugar. After it cooled down I mixed in the yeast and then threw it in a 5 gal bucket with an air lock. Its been two days and it hasn't started bubbling. Its about 65-70 degrees in the room where the bucket is. I've taken off the cap a couple times to check on it. When I stir it again it really starts to bubbling again. But instead of foam its more of a solid, like a thick, airy cream almost. Don't know what to do. Advice is very appreciated and welcome!

by mashing i literally meant mushing up the bananas putting all of it on enough water to create 5 gal and heating it at 150 degrees for two hours. After i strained it all and put in 2-3 lbs of sugar and stirred it in for 20 min and after it cooled i stirred the yeast in. i used half grocery store yeast for fast rising dough and also half distillers yeast which came in a 1lb bag and calls for 1-2 grams per 5 to 10 gal of mash. I put the whole .25 packet of yeast in. I just watered down the (4 ish gal) of thick mash i had with 1 gal of water to make one 5gal bucket full of liquid. i did that about two hours ago, still no bubbling from the airlock yet

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Ahhhh, I see, you said --I mashed in by mashing up--thats where my confusion came from, but still not mashing its more like smashing...hehehehe!

And you also said 150 for two hours - what was the reason for 2 hours of 150 temp? The sugar would not need that much time to melt, I'm not knocking what you did just wondering how this process is supposed to work, but I know why it did'nt. With a little tweaking to the process you can still make something like this work for your brandy so dont give up on the idea."

"Shoot, I had to leave my mash unattended for a week and won't be able to check it until this Saturday. The mash is predominately liquid but also has an inch of something that looks like a thick foam. The mash has definitely fermented because I can taste and smell the alcohol. As for cooking the bananas, I only boiled them for that long because I had the time. I figured it wouldn't hurt and could only draw out more sugar. I also added about 2-3 lbs of sugar at the time I cooked the bananas. Hopefully everything will be kosher when I get back to check it.

PS. If i put beano in wouldn't that mean I wouldn't get any gas? I want gas. CO2! "

"YG, I swung over to HD and according to their info Bananas have 20 to 25% of the yield of sugar, so that tells me you should have LOTS of nanners or add alot of sugar...Just my thoughts.

Farmin"

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No worries mate, if you didn't toss it out yet go ahead and run it, I think you said it smelled of etoh. Run it and see what you get. Live and learn, I bet it'll make something pretty good just not an over abundance of nanner flavor. But still thats ok you can get a little jug of food grade extract from Publix or whatever grocery store you have close and add that so that should jazz it right up, no what I mean???
When you cook it run it a little on the pushy side - like a little faster (or hotter) to push that flavor through to the distillate and see what happens, I dont think it will hurt anything.
Remember this is a trial and error hobbie untill you become a hoochologist and then its loads of fun - so dont give up yet.."

My ferment ended Sunday night. The foam cap I'd been stirring back in twice a day just disappeared. No more activity. I'm racking now to get ready for a Saturday morning run.

I started out with a SG of 1.0844 and ended with 1.005, so I think i got ~10.2%. Even though I got a decent ferment, I believe I should have brought down the original SG to 1.080. I would have had more liquid at the end of the ferment .

My run on Saturday morning will confirm or deny that thought.

Well, I have the wash racked and in the boiler. I'm ready for tomorrow.

You can imagine the trub at the bottom of the fermenter for this wash. YUCK! Funny thing is, I poured the rest of the trub from the fermenter to a bucket and left it overnight. Durn thing had a foam cap on it the next day! It was still going!

However, I figured out a way to get the most liquid from the wash. I went to Wally World and bought a yard of fabric interfacing. It's a fabric that people put behind another fabric that makes it stiffer when they sew up a garment. It's a polyester mesh and is relatively porous. I got the "sew-in" type so I didn't have any chemicals on it (some interfacing irons onto the fabric). I cut the yard length in half and folded one into a cone shape and dropped it into my funnel. I started pouring in the liquid and trub and it would drain out fairly quickly. Once the trub started making it go slower, I picked up the ends of the fabric and started rocking it back and forth. That made the liquid come out quicker. When the trub started separating from itself (getting chunky), I'd rinse it out and do some more. You can squeeze the trub a little in the fabric, but it does have its limits (I know...). I used the fabric again when I poured the liquid into the boiler and got a tiny bit more of trub. I'm real pleased with the stuff. $1.66 per yard.

And, since I was a little short on liquid, I poured in a gallon of Graham Cracker SMOP 90 proof to make the ETOH content at ~13.68%. :)

I just finished my run. 7.8 liters
56.4%. Very light on banana smell and taste. Airing the jars now.