How do I prevent a ripe banana aroma in my beer?

Answer 1

Keep your temperature down.  If this is an English or American ale, ferment below 70 F.  The best you can do without a temp controlled fridge is to set a pan of water under your fermenter and then dress the bucket or carboy in a tee shirt.  Let the water wick up from the pan and evaporate from the shirt.  Put a desk fan on it for a better effect.  Expect only a 5-10 F difference.  Be sure to carefully remove the shirt before racking or bottling and spray the outside very well with sanitiser.   Don't ferment with a lager yeast unless you have a fridge.  Even a California Steam Beer needs to be kept under 60 F to taste right. If the tee shirt trick only gets you down to about 85 F, try the Belgian recipes.  They are supposed to have banana and clove flavour/ aroma.  Don't drink anything that fermented at or above 90 F.  The yeast make fusel oils really bad at that point.  You will be seeing stars- litterally.  The experience is something akin to an optical migraine.  Google it.  Not good for you.

Comments

I use half of a 45 gallon plastic barrel with water and different size plastic bottles of ice (frozen Coke bottles...mostly 22 oz.) to control my fermentation temps. Works great.