Beer/Mead Maker Making 1st Wine (Banana). Few Questions.

[zonkman]

Howdy,

I'm making a 5 gallon batch of Jack Keller's banana wine 2 (my first fruit wine) and have a couple of questions:

-- Should I use staggered nutrient additions (as with my meads)? See comparatively little mention of it.

-- Yeast. Planning on using Lalvin 71b. In the mead world, it's known for producing great melomels quickly. 2 packets for a 5 gallon batch?

-- See various approaches to degassing. Better to, or no effect?

-- Hoping to bottle-carbonate a few bottles. Any sparkling banana reviews?

General advice also great.

Thanks all! Will also be doing rhubarb, chocolate/strawberry.... any other winning recipe suggestions welcome too!

 

[Arne]

First offf, welcome to the forum. I almost always stagger the nutrients. Helps keep the yeast healthy all thru the ferment. Probably only need one pkg. of yeast, won't hurt to add 2 but they multiply fast and one should be enough. You can degass or not, kinda your choice. Never made anything sparkling on purpose, can't help you much there. Might see how the banana comes out, there is not a lot of flavor there so unlesss you use a lot of them it can be a bit weak. Before you start the rhubarb search the old posts on here. Bet you will find they use much more rhubarb than most recipes you find. Gives a lot more of the flavor you are looking for. Arne.