Random Brew 2: Banana Melomel

I was persuaded into making this mead courtesy of my girlfriend. If there is one item of food she would happily live on and forego all other foods, it would be bananas. So off I went to the great library of the internet for some research to find if people had already been making this and how to get the banana flavour into mead. I stumbled upon a thread where someone else had been in a similar situation to me and various posts had been left referencing other attempts people had done and their processes. I had my start.

On a random trip out to Tesco's last week I happened across some bananas that were still really really good but reduced in price beyond belief. Not even sure why they were reduced in all honesty: maybe excess stock. Who knows. I picked up 2.5kg of bananas for 28p and considered myself rather lucky! Onto the cooking...

The bananas were sliced with skin on and placed into a pan with 4 pints of water. The "stew" was brought up to the boil and then simmered for around 30/45 minutes. At this point your house will begin to smell of bananas. Also, unless I had done something wrong at this point, boiled bananas turned the water a yellowy-grey colour which, to say this is something to be drunk as a pleasant aperitif, is not one of the most attractive colours. This concoction was then sieved and strained to remove all the pulp leaving only the banana flavoured water. To this, around 1700g of honey was added and dissolved thoroughly. I opted for the extra honey in this batch as I wanted more of a dessert mead for this batch with such sweet flavours from the banana. Next I did all of the usual preparations and sterilising before transferring the mead to the demijohn and topping up with cold water to 1 gallon. I pitched my yeast; the same yeast from the bochet and sealed her up. This batch also has 1tsp of yeast nutrient added due to the high alcohol potential. I'd rather have my yeast live a little longer before they get too drunk.

On the science side, the batch was tested for SG and yielded 1.095 or in terms of potential alcohol, 12.7%. I am hoping that while fermenting the melomel will clear up a bit and give a more pleasant colour to look at rather than the swamp water that there is in there currently. Taste-wise however it is lovely. Obviously non alcoholic and the honey flavour should reduce somewhat but the banana taste is great yet subtle. So far it has been fermenting for a day and the CO2 production is going like a trooper.

...And after one day of fermenting I wish I hadn't said it was going like a trooper! I got home from work last night to a demijohn that was bubbling through its airlock. Never a good sight.I look the airlock off, cleaned and re-sterilized it and attached it back on after pouring out some of the liquid in the demijohn to give it a little more room. After a few hours everything seemed to have been solved up till the point I wanted to go to bed and it began to do the same again. Obviously no shops are really open at this time to help me so I had to make an emergency blow-off tube with what I had lying around.I've put a picture up to show the job I had to do... please forgive the looks of it! I melted an airlock and plastic tubing together and sealed any holes with wax. Seems to do the trick though.

To update with the bochet, it is still going strong after little over a week. The yeast doesn't really show any signs of slowing up just yet but I am anticipating a possible restart being needed... we shall see. It now has one friend to go with it and next week it should be going by another. 3 day weekends seem to be a great excuse to do some brewing!