Banana as Adjunct in Beer Production: Applicability and Performance of Fermentative Parameters Giovani B. M. Carvalho & Daniel P. Silva & Camila V. Bento & António A. Vicente & José A. Teixeira & Maria das Graças A. Felipe & João B. Almeida e Silva Received: 22 May 2008 / Accepted: 26 November 2008 / Published online: 17 December 2008 # Humana Press 2008 Abstract Traditionally, the raw materials for beer production are barley, hops, water, and yeast, but most brewers use also different adjuncts. During the alcoholic fermentation, the contribution of aroma compounds from other ingredients to the final beer flavor depends on the wort composition, on the yeast strain, and mainly on the process conditions. In this context, banana can also be a raw material favorable to alcoholic fermentation being rich in carbohydrates and minerals and providing low acidity. In this work, the objective was to evaluate the performance of wort adjusted with banana juice in different concentrations. For this, static fermentations were conducted at 15 °C at pilot scale (140 L of medium). The addition of banana that changed the concentration of all-malt wort from 10 °P to 12 and 15 °P were evaluated (°P is the weight of the extract or the sugar equivalent in 100 g solution, at 20 °C). The results showed an increase in ethanol production, with approximately 0.4 g/g ethanol yield and 0.6 g/L h volumetric productivity after 84 h of processing when concentrated wort was used. Thus, it was concluded that banana can be used as an adjunct in brewing methods, helping in the development of new products as well as in obtaining concentrated worts. Keywords Beer . Raw materials . Adjunct . Banana . Brewing . Fermentation Introduction Traditionally, the raw materials for beer production are malted grains of barley, hops, water, and yeast, but most brewers add different adjuncts. Conventional beer fermentation Appl Biochem Biotechnol (2009) 155:356–365 DOI 10.1007/s12010-008-8458-y G. B. M. Carvalho : C. V. Bento : M. G. A. Felipe : J. B. Almeida e Silva Biotechnology Department, Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, Campus I, P.O. Box 116, 12602-810 Lorena, SP, Brazil D. P. Silva (*) : A. A. Vicente : J. A. Teixeira Centre of Biological Engineering, IBB—Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal e-mail: silvadp@deb.uminho.pt e-mail: silvadp@hotmail.com