Banana mead recipe

At a glance

Style

Melomel

Alcohol

About 12.6% ABV

Finish

Semi-sweet

Difficulty

Intermediate

Honey

Wildflower or clover

Yeast

Lalvin 71B

Ready in

5 to 6 months

Batch

1 gallon, scalable

Ingredients

Quantities are for one US gallon (3.8 liters). Pick a batch size and every amount updates; one packet of yeast covers up to six gallons. Not sure how much honey your own twist needs? Use the mead calculator.

Swapping the fruit or changing the amount? Adding fruit to mead covers how much to use per gallon, when to add it and how long to leave it. The dose and timing of the enzyme are explained in how much pectic enzyme per gallon of mead. This recipe ferments dry and is sweetened at the end: how to backsweeten mead has the stabilizing doses and a honey chart for any batch size.

Equipment

• Large stockpot (at least 4 quarts)
• 2-gallon bucket with lid
• 1-gallon glass jug
• Airlock and drilled bung
• Hydrometer
• Fine nylon straining bag
• Auto-siphon and tubing
• No-rinse sanitizer (Star San)

New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.

Step-by-step method

1. Make the banana tea

   Slice the peeled bananas into rounds and put them in the stockpot with 3 quarts (about 2.8 L) of the water and, if you are using them, two or three washed peels. Bring it to a simmer and hold it there, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Keep it at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil, which breaks the fruit down into a paste that will not strain.

2. Strain without pressing

   Set the straining bag in the sanitized bucket and pour the pot through it. Let it drip for 20 to 30 minutes and lift the bag out without squeezing: pressing pushes starch and pulp through and gives you a mead that never quite clears. Discard the solids. You will have roughly 2.5 quarts of golden, cloudy liquid.

3. Mix the must

   While the tea is still warm, stir in the honey until no streaks remain, then top up with cool water to the 1-gallon mark. Once it is below 90°F (32°C), stir in the pectic and amylase enzymes. Take a gravity reading: it should be close to 1.096, but banana sugar varies with ripeness, so trust the hydrometer over the estimate.

4. Pitch the yeast

   Rehydrate the 71B with the Go-Ferm for 15 minutes and pitch once it is within 18°F (10°C) of the must. Keep it at 62 to 68°F (17 to 20°C); a cool ferment keeps the soft banana note from turning into a solvent-like one.

5. Feed the yeast

   Add a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and the last quarter at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.064) or on day 7, whichever comes first. Degas gently before each addition.

6. Rack off the first sludge

   When the gravity holds near 0.998 to 1.000 for three days (usually 2 to 3 weeks), rack into the glass jug. Expect a deep, fluffy layer of sediment and lose some volume; top up with a little cooled boiled water rather than leaving a large headspace.

7. Clear, and rack again

   Banana mead clears slowly. Leave it 6 to 8 weeks, rack it once more off the second layer of sediment, and give it another few weeks. If it is still hazy, see troubleshooting.

8. Stabilize and sweeten

   Add the crushed Campden tablet and the sorbate, wait 48 hours, then sweeten with honey 1 oz at a time (about 0.002 gravity per ounce per gallon). Around 6 oz takes it from 1.000 to about 1.012. A little sweetness is what lets the banana show; dry, it tastes thin.

9. Bottle

   Bottle and give it at least 6 weeks in the bottle. It is at its best from about 6 months to a year.

Timeline

1. Day 0Make and strain the banana tea, mix the must, pitch yeast
2. Days 1 to 7Four nutrient additions, degas
3. Weeks 2 to 3Fermented dry; rack off the heavy sediment
4. Weeks 9 to 12Second racking; clear
5. Month 4Stabilize, sweeten, bottle
6. Month 5 and onDrink; best from about 6 months to a year

Why this recipe works

The tea method is the recipe. Banana flesh is soft, starchy and full of pectin, and when it goes straight into the fermenter it breaks down into a thick sludge that traps mead, takes up a third of the vessel and keeps the batch hazy for months. Simmering and straining keeps the flavor and some of the sugar and body, and leaves most of the solids in the bag.

Ripeness is where the flavor comes from. Bananas convert starch to sugar as they ripen, so brown-speckled fruit has more sugar, more banana aroma and less starch than yellow or green fruit. We assume the strained tea carries about half of the fruit sugar, roughly 8 gravity points from 3 lb, which is why the honey is a little lower than a plain mead.

Two enzymes, because there are two kinds of haze. Pectic enzyme breaks down the fruit pectin as in any fruit mead, and amylase breaks down the starch that heating releases from banana. Adding both at the start does most of the clearing for you.

71B is a gentle, fruit-forward yeast that ferments cleanly when kept cool and tolerates about 14% alcohol, comfortably above this recipe. Banana is a subtle flavor in mead, more a soft roundness than a banana-candy note, and an aggressive yeast or a warm ferment covers it up.

Variations

• Bananas Foster: use a dark honey such as buckwheat for a third of the honey, and add half a split vanilla bean and one cinnamon stick for the last 10 days of clearing.
• Banana and caramel: make the honey into a light bochet first (see our bochet recipe) for a toffee note that suits banana well.
• More banana aroma: add 1 lb of frozen, thawed, very ripe banana in a bag for the last 5 to 7 days before racking, and accept a little extra sediment.

Troubleshooting

More mead recipes to try

• Mango mead (and pineapple mead) recipe: Ripe mango in secondary with lime for lift, plus a pineapple swap.
• Peach mead recipe: Ripe peaches in secondary, extra pectic enzyme and acid set by taste for a clear, fragrant mead.
• Bochet (caramelized honey mead) recipe: Honey cooked to dark caramel before it ferments. Toffee, marshmallow and dark fruit.

More fruit mead recipes: Strawberry mead, Raspberry mead, Blueberry mead, Blackberry mead, Cherry mead, Cyser (apple mead), Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAOM), Pyment (grape mead), Elderberry mead, Pomegranate mead, Pumpkin mead, Cranberry mead, Apple pie mead.

Or browse all our mead recipes. If this is your first batch, start with the traditional mead recipe or the step-by-step guide to making honey wine.

Frequently asked questions