How to Make Banana Syrup at Home in 4 Different Ways

Hello my lovely friends, welcome back to Mixology Hacks. It's so nice to see you, even I can't see you, but I'm just gonna imagine your smiley faces because the channel is back and I'm back. And if you were worried what's happening, why the channel doesn't upload anything, what's happened with me, everything is fine. I have a few questions from subscribers on Just Shake or Steer and also here asking me why did you give up on the channel, what's happening. No, simply if you're not aware I have a co-host on Just Shake or Steer, so we have Nif with us, a brand new co-host, so I decided to take some time to kind of settle down, to arrange the channel, to give Nif time to settle as well. And also I was on a holiday because I needed a little break. So everything now it's kind of getting where we want to be and I'm back here for Mixology Hacks. Today we are going to prepare banana syrup. So my lovely friends, if you're ready, I have three different techniques to show you how to prepare your banana syrup. I will explain what you can use them for and in the end we're gonna combine two of the techniques to create a version four of the banana syrup. So as you can see you have plenty of choice, plenty to learn. We'll take our time as always, there is no rush for anywhere. These videos here on the channel, they take as long as they need to because that's the whole point, for you to learn, to prepare things behind your home bar or even if you work in the bar somewhere you can implement some of these techniques. Okay, so without further ado, let's see what we need today for our three types of banana syrup. Okay, first we start with the bananas, of course. Now, as you can see, it's the same banana but this is overripe, which is black, black, black, fantastic. This is just in the perfect stage of ripening when the spots start coming on the skin and this is quite kind of a fresh, not green, but it's just a few days before it starts ripening like this one. The reason why I'm doing this is to show you that each one of these could be used and the more the banana is ripe, the more flavor you're going to extract of it. So we're going to use the overripe and the ripe banana today. We're going to use the peels to create a lovely oleosaccharum version of the banana syrup. So oleosaccharum, what does it mean? It's basically oil and sugar, so it's maceration of the peels. So the sugar helps to extract the oils from the peel and this way it's melting down and it's taking all the flavors from the peel and became a syrup. Depends on the peel or the fruit you're using, that's kind of a syrup you're gonna get. If you didn't watch my video on the oleosaccharum with the citrus fruit, you can watch it. It's basically the same technique. So you do lemon, orange, grapefruit, you don't want to throw the peel, you can make oleosaccharum. Same with the bananas. Most of the fruits have oil and flavors in the peel which you can extract and you can use. Not everything is perfect, but in our case today with the banana it's absolutely smashing. The fresh one we're not going to use today, but you can still easily make a syrup from them. Obviously it's not going to be that rich in flavor and aromas like the ripe or the overripe bananas. Okay, I just wanted to show you the difference. All of this could be used. Okay, so for the first oleosaccharum technique or you know the maceration with the sugar, we'll be using an airtight container. You need anything which you can put the peels and close nicely. If you don't have a container, you use any like a baking tray, anything what you have, but make sure you have something to cover on the top so no air is coming in. It could be a cling film, could be anything. Just make sure you're doing it. So what we're going to do, first of all, I'm going to get the overripe bananas. Obviously we don't need this, the stalks on the back, but we will get our peels and we're going to start. Let's just make it this way, the other way around. I need that plate because we're going to put the bananas there for the next syrup, the next technique. Now you can chop the peels if you want, but it depends on your container. You can literally line them up just like that. Now more sugar, more syrup you're going to get. There's no particularly any kind of a measurement here how much sugar you want to do and how much sugar you need to macerate. The rule is the sugar to cover the peel. Simple as that. You don't need too much because remember when this sugar is dissolved and when it extracts all the flavor and all the aromas from the banana peel, obviously when you strain it you're going to end up with some ready syrup. You can always add a little bit more sugar or maybe dilute a little bit and have more liquid. Okay, choice of sugar. Now this is something which we can talk a little bit. It's entirely up to you. For me the general rule is when I do dark fruit or a golden fruit or anything tropical I like to use demerara sugar. I found a more rich, more kind of a matching and pairing well with this type of fruits and it's doing really very good rich syrup but not exactly using so much sugar. It's just the actual demerara sugar give enough extra flavor and sweetness to the syrup. So as I said there's no really particular measurement. What I do is I put the peels and I'm just gonna cover these peels with the sugar. Leave it on the side and move to the next banana. So basically that's what you do. It just doesn't even want to go. It's gone. The skin is gone really like a leather. So I'll give it a little cut to make it easier. We don't need that. There you go. So I'm gonna put the next on the top. It's lovely like a full big piece of banana peel. Again I'm gonna cover it with sugar so the sugar can start working the magic of maceration. And then I'm gonna move to the rest of the bananas which it's just perfect like a ripe at the moment. All of them is gonna extract enough flavor and oil. I will separate them here just in case and let's put one more. A bit of more sugar again. As you can see it's easy peasy. That's a lazy way of making banana syrup. The only thing you need here it's a good ripe bananas and lots of patience. Because what's gonna happen is once this peel is ready inside we're gonna leave for about 12 hours or maybe even overnight to give chance the sugar to melt and extract every single bit of flavor and aromas from these peels. So there's no rush. Do not push it. You don't need to put it let's say on the sunny place or something just to you know speed up the process. Don't do it. Just leave it on the side. Give it a chance. Go do whatever you do. The sugar is gonna do the job for you. It's a bit messy but hey that's the joy of doing this. So as you can see I'm pretty much ending up to the top of the container. I have one banana left. Right. Once again don't forget you can watch the oleosaccharum if you want to do with the citrus. But basically it's pretty much working the same way. I presume probably once in your lifetime you had a strawberry covered with sugar and then you just enjoy eating them and drinking the water which is released after the sugar is melted. So it's pretty much the same thing. Obviously if you leave it too long it's gonna start fermenting. So you may create a little bit of kind of a type of tepache or something else. But anyway that's a different video. Right. I'm gonna close this. Get all my garbage on the side and we're gonna put this away and we're gonna leave it for the next 12 to maybe a little bit more. More than 12 hours. So at the moment it's here it's 2 p.m. So I'm gonna leave it overnight for sure. And I'm gonna come back to the video tomorrow morning so I can show you the result. As you can see it takes a bit time to record these videos. Now next stage of the process. We've done the peels. This is gonna create syrup. Now what we're gonna do with the fruit. Well you can bake. You can do banana bread. You can do whatever you want if you don't want to go any further. However you can use the banana fruit to create another kind of a type of syrup. Banana syrup. The difference here is gonna be that the oleosaccharum syrup or the maceration process is gonna give you a clear syrup. With the banana fruit you're gonna have a cloudy syrup. Which it's absolutely fine. Nothing wrong about it. And in general I do like to use the cloudy one for maybe a tiki recipes or recipes which contain a lemon juice or some other juice. Because it's already is gonna be not see-through cocktail. So it doesn't matter it's cloudy. When the other syrup which it's obviously oleosaccharum. I like to use it in clear cocktails. Like I did on the banana rum old fashion on just shake or stir. So make sure you watch it. I'm probably gonna leave the link in the description. But if you want to have the clear cocktail. Any type of clear cocktail when it don't have cloudiness. You have to use the process with maceration. The oleosaccharum. Otherwise nothing wrong. So we're gonna cut our bananas in fairly like a one centimeter. Like a circles. You don't have to be exactly precise. But we're gonna cut the whole. How many we have here? We have six. Okay I don't need the end of that. So you have two overripe. Which pretty much is gonna get destroyed in the process of making the syrup. But once again it's nothing wrong being cloudy. Also just to mention. You can always filtrate it in the later stage. Or if you want to create clear syrup. But that's involve using agar agar or gelatin. And it's the process getting really kind of a too much. So there's no point. Okay but there is a way to do it. Okay before we go further with this method. I want to mention here. I'm gonna change the sugar. You can still use demerara sugar. But in this case I do prefer to use caster sugar. Because it's fine sugar. And it's gonna melt quicker. Still gonna extract enough flavor. And it's gonna make enough sugar syrup inside. But bear in mind. The fruit it's more lighter than the peel. So we're not gonna use dark sugar. We're gonna use caster sugar. Which it's lighter. And it's gonna create very nice kind of like a pale golden syrup. Okay so for this what we need. Let me just put that first here. I hope top camera can see it. Yeah so I need my scale. Okay zero. I need to zero my scale. Sorry guys. Just a quick switch off and switch on. There you go. And I'm gonna measure my bananas. Simple as that. Just put them in. Because they are very ripe. And just sticking to my hands everywhere. Right I need this cutting board on the side for now. So we have 192 grams of bananas. I'm gonna go exactly with the same amount of sugar. So around 200 grams. So we're gonna measure 200 grams of sugar. White caster sugar yeah. Okay 200 to 203 grams. No big deal. I'm gonna cover these bananas with the sugar. And give it a good mix. Okay so for this. Let's get a bar spoon. Just make sure the sugar stick everywhere to the fruit. And start doing the maceration process again. Wonderful. And I need a cover. You will cover this. You can leave it overnight. Again. So we're gonna put this on the side. And we're gonna leave it on the side overnight. And we'll come back tomorrow morning to see both. Now this process involves a little after cooking. Which is just a little bit. But you'll see it when we come back to it. So we go to the final. We don't need the scale anymore. I'll get this after. So the final one. It's a little bit more. Not complicated. But involves different equipment. So if you don't have. You can just ignore. And you can make it as we did the first two techniques. Okay. So for this. I'm gonna cut my bananas first. Let's just get this sorted. Again in nice circles. As you can see this one it's more harder. Because it's not overripe like the rest of it. But this time we're gonna use a water bath. Or a sauce vat. Or whatever you want to call it. I just keep calling a water bath. Because basically it is what it is. It's a water bath. What the difference is here. That you don't actually cook the banana in a water. You don't have any of this. We have a little bit overripe here. So what I'm gonna do. While we're having this. I'm gonna get these four pieces. Because they're overripe. We don't want them here. Just a quick. Mix them with the rest. Overripe. They've already start melting. It's fantastic. That is gonna be beautiful. Let's give them a little shake. So they get some sugar. All right. Back to business. Now we don't need this plate anymore. We will leave the demerara sugar on the side. Right. We cut these bananas. And we need a bag. So in this bag. The banana is gonna go in. Hopefully I can do it without messing too much. But as I mentioned. That's the joy of it. So there you go. I want to push them all in. So this is what? Four bananas. You don't need to measure. Again. Here it's coming to the point. When we will add around probably 200 grams of sugar. And if you feel after. When the process is finished. You want to do more. You can always add sugar. And dissolve. Now it's entirely up to you. You control the game. Okay. Now we have this. Let's measure another. Where I put the scale. Okay. Let's measure another 200 grams. Now. Again. Personal preference. Because it's a fruit like this. I'm gonna use caster sugar. If you want to use demerara sugar to make it darker. Just go for it. Remember. My advice. It's always to use demerara sugar for a peel. Apart from the. There you go. That's what? 210 grams. It's fine. It's actually left little bit. So let's put everything. So 220 grams. Again. It's around 200 grams. So don't worry about it. I'm gonna get the whole sugar inside. Right. Everything else. It's done now. Can go away. I love when things clearly kind of going away. And it's getting cleared about. It's so good. And I'm gonna switch on my vacuum. So what we need here. Depends on the vacuum you're using. Obviously they have dry moist seal. You can choose. The idea here. It's to vacuum this. And put it on a water bath. But there's a one last secret. You need some dark rum. Yeah. I'm gonna choose. What I'm gonna choose. Rum Malecon. That'll do 12 years old. That'll do fantastic. Now. For this. I will be using around. You can put half an ounce. Just. It's gonna help. With the actual preserving the syrup for longer. And since it's gonna be kind of a thermal. Not water cooking. But it's gonna be under temperature. The rum. It's gonna lower down a The idea. It's just helping you to preserve the syrup for longer. Okay. And finally we need. And the final ingredients. This is vanilla bean extract. So. We're gonna go. With a bar spoon of vanilla bean extract. Sorry I'm putting it straight in the back like that. I just don't want. I'm gonna go with two spoons. Two spoons of vanilla extract inside. Right. Let's seal. Okay. Perfect. So first we're gonna go straight away on a sealing. Okay. He's doing his job. Fabulous. There you go. Sealed. We leave some air inside. The reason why we're doing here is because. Many people do mistake. It's not a mistake. But it's not the ideal situation. If you cook banana in water. Obviously you're gonna introduce water. It's gonna introduce dilution. It won't be that much extra flavor. Or hundred percent flavor coming from the bananas. So it's not wrong. But it's not the quality which we're looking for. So when we're doing with the vacuum chamber. Or we vacuum in the back. We basically gonna put on the hot water bath. For around probably 30 minutes. It's gonna melt the sugar. It's gonna extract the flavor. Then we can leave it to rest overnight. And it's gonna be basically cooked in his own juice. So it won't be any water. Afterwards if you want to dilute it. Or you want to make it less sweet. You can always introduce water. You can give it a little simmer. So the water obviously just before boiling. And you can still do it. But you already extract the full flavor of the banana. Okay. That's why it is. Apart from that. Don't get me wrong. It's nothing wrong. I don't expect everybody to have sauce bite. Or anything like that. So it's nothing wrong. Just to use the cooking process. If you want. So first we're gonna put the temperature in what we need to cook. Cook for 30 minutes. On 56 Celsius. Or 132 Fahrenheit. So I'm gonna go first. Put my temperature. So bananas. It's a kind of a you know delicate fruit. It's gonna cook faster. What we what we actually want to. What we want to achieve here. Is basically speed up the process of maceration. And don't wait overnight. However we're gonna live overnight as well after. Now timing. 30 minutes. Okay. Okay. Open. Put your bag inside. And let it cook. And I'll see you in 30 minutes time. Just breaking the cycle very quick. Because when I said 30 minutes cook. And if you use this technique. You should know that you have to preheat the water first to 56 degree. Or 132 Fahrenheit. And then cook for 30 minutes. It's cooking time 30 minutes after reach the required temperature. All right. I'll see you soon. Hear this sound. That's it. 30 minutes. It's over. So we are done. In this 30 minutes. I took the bag twice. Just to shake a little bit. Because when you do the sauce right. The sugar it's heavy. And it's gonna drop on the bottom of the bag. Here we go. It's keep beeping. So I'm just gonna stop. Because it's annoying me. Right. So the sugar it's heavier. And obviously it's gonna drop on the bottom. And it's gonna get a little bit solid. Which it's kind of preventing the melting process. So you need to take off the bag a few times. And give it a little like a gentle shake. It's not that warm. Only 56 inside. To be honest. But on outside it's okay. And as you can see now. We have fully cooked bananas. With a wonderful golden banana syrup. We'll be filtrating this tomorrow. But for now. I'll just leave it on the side. Just to dry a little bit. Cool it down. And I'll put it away. It's ready. Basically it's ready. This is your syrup. It could be strained. Fine strain. Whatever you decide. And you can start using it. But because tomorrow. Let me just move that as well. Lots of things going on here. Okay. But because we have to wait for our second version of the banana syrup. And I'm just gonna open it quickly. To show you. That it's already melting. You can see that yeah. It's already melting inside. But we'll give it overnight. Just to extract everything from this banana. And finally of course. The Oleosaccharum. You won't see much. But it start melting on the bottom here. Because obviously the sugar is breaking up through the peels. And it's gonna extract everything. So as I mentioned. All this. I'm gonna leave it on the side. It's gonna do its job. The sugar. And in my case. I'll see you tomorrow. In your case. I'll see you in a few seconds. With the final results. So stay tuned. Good morning my lovely friends. Yes good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Whatever time you're watching it. For me it's morning. So it's half ten in the morning. And we finished doing everything yesterday. Around two afternoon. So it's been staying overnight. Our middle technique. Let's put it that way. This is the result from the sauce white. And we're gonna go to it of course. And this is our results. You can see a lovely dark color. It's the syrup. This is the maceration. So to win some time today. And make everything smooth as possible. We're gonna start from the middle section. Because this requires a little bit of cooking. And while it's cooking. We're gonna go through the maceration. And the sauce white. Okay. So first of all. I need my stove. Yes. So what's gonna happen here. I'm gonna put on the side actually. Yep. Let's see which one I'm gonna use. Yeah. So we're gonna put on the side to warm up. It's not needed like a boiling the syrup. But it needs a little bit heat. So we can incorporate the water which we're gonna put inside. Now if you look here. Hopefully you see on the side of the camera. It's. Let me show you. You can see that as well. A little bit. I know it's a little bit bloody. Because it's focusing on my face. But anyway. So this is stay overnight. And of course the sugar it's melted. But not completely. This is why we're gonna need to put some water. In general I'll measure first how much liquid I have. And I'll put water. But since we put 200 grams of sugar inside. We're gonna go the ratio 2 to 1. So we're gonna use 100 milliliters of water. So I definitely won't need this. Now what's gonna happen. Put everything in the small saucer pan. And preferably get a scoop to get all the sugar in. I will use my bar spoon. And let me just show you what's happening. There you go. That's the sugar which is left on the bottom. However we're gonna help to dissolve this with a little heat. And also this sugar already half the flavor from the bananas. Doesn't matter it's not dissolved. Everything what it's like a liquid inside. It's whatever the sugar managed to extract from the actual bananas. Okay. So we're gonna get as much possible the sugar inside. And I'll show you a little trick now. Which I'm pretty sure you know. But I will show you anyway. Don't just put this on the side. You need 100 ml of water. So let's just measure. Being exactly precise. So 100 ml of water. This is what we're gonna add to our mixture of banana and sugar. Then again we're gonna grab a rum. Preferably dark rum. And we'll be adding a 15 ml or a half ounce of rum to the mixture. There you go. Fantastic. And finally the same what we did with the sauce white. We'll be adding a little bit of vanilla extract. And in our case it's gonna be two barspoons. There you go. That's it. Now we're gonna give a little gentle stir. Just so we get the rest of the sugar which is left inside. We don't want to lose anything. Do we? Every gram counts to be honest with you. Just give it a little stir. There you go. Fantastic. This is start already warming up nicely. Let's put this inside. And we are good to go to be honest. So I presume it's a good idea for me to put a towel. And for you as well. Because you rather wash the towel than cleaning the bar of all stickiness. Now this is gonna go on the side because I don't want it next to me. It's too close. I just want it to be on the side here to start warming up. And we're gonna move to the maceration process. There you go. So we have our peels. Let me just center this for you nicely so you can see what's happening. Oh I can't wait to open and see oh my gosh wonderful now you get this banana flavor but you get a little bit of kind of I don't know if it's the right way to say it grassiness because obviously it's a peel which is absolutely fine because we'll be adding a little bit of vanilla extract to this as well. Yeah now with the maceration the sugar is pretty much melted. If you want to melt 100% you gotta leave it for another probably five six hours. But I will strain at the moment whenever it's ready. Just make sure everything it's in. Oh my gosh it's gonna be sticky. So yeah there is a little bit sugar left inside but that's kind of absolutely fine. It's not that much. Usually this kind of Ole Sacrum it's usually up to two weeks. It may go up to three weeks if you keep it in the fridge. And obviously if you drop a little bit of rum inside. But one to two weeks it's absolutely fine. So I'll leave it on the side for every single drop. Our middle technique which is with the cooking it's already start warming up really nicely. We don't want to boil. Yeah all we need is just to incorporate the water with the sugar with the vanilla extract with the rum and that's it. Just warm it up a little bit. That's all. You don't want to boil. Don't cook the bananas. Okay. Oh it smells delightful. The vanilla, the little bit of the rum, the banana flavor. Oh it's just beautiful. Right there you go. It's gonna start boiling. So we're gonna stop the heat. Perfect. And now it's time to get our sauce bite ready. My hands it's sticky but as I mentioned before it's perfect. So first of all you're gonna cut a little bit on the corner. The reason why you want to do this is because you want to strain the liquid as much as possible without many bananas going in. Yeah they will go but just try to go slowly because obviously you don't want to just drop everything in once. Here we are. I think that sieve may be too small. I think so. We'll see. Right. It's a patient game. I'm gonna give it a little shake because it's very... the density it's too high. Remember it's just banana and sugar inside. There's no added water. Obviously we add a little bit of vanilla extract and we add a little bit of rum but that's all. That's the only what maybe 20 ml of liquid we put extra which it's absolutely fine. Beautiful. We're gonna do something really quick. This one, the peels, the maceration it's done. The sieve it's massive. It's gonna help me more with this type of filtration. So I will remove the peels. Put them back here. Let's put on the side our sauce bite and bottle our syrup first. So if you have a funnel it's better. Mine is somewhere in the kitchen so I'm just gonna use my steady hands here. But there you go. Look at how much we got. That's your dark banana syrup made from banana peels and demerara sugar maceration process, oleosaccharin process. Perfect for any clear cocktails. It's just amazing and I'm gonna grab this and we do a little exchange. There we go. Perfect. I need the big sieve. Okay and keep going. All right there you go. Let's put it all in. So just a gentle help the liquid to go in. I will leave the bananas as they are. Grab a little pot which I want to put the syrup in. Just for a moment gonna transfer the bananas on the side. Do a very quick fill up with the syrup and the rest of it I'm gonna leave it on the side just to keep dripping down and extract the most of these bananas. And with all fairness I need to have one of these. That is just oh my gosh. Vanilla, banana, rum, everything you can feel. But there you go. Look at that. This is first method maceration. Dark lovely syrup. Wonderful for clear cocktails. Third method sauce white. Also very nice for clear cocktails or any other cocktails. But as you can see it's a more golden color. Okay and finally I'm gonna need this one to get our last way we did it which is made with a little bit of cooking. Okay just a gentle I'm gonna help the liquid to go in and it's gonna be the same story like with the sauce white. I will leave the rest of the banana just to drip to the final like a drop of the liquid. Okay there you go. I will gently just spread the bananas in the sieve. And this is it my friends. I'm gonna leave everything here on the side to work out the magic. Get the last drops of everything. But here we are again. So let's change them in order as we filmed today. And this way we can talk about it. So you have the maceration process which is obviously all your saccharum. So it's demerara sugar with the banana peels. Extract the flavor. Melt the sugar. Absolutely fantastic. What we need to do here is drop a bar spoon of vanilla inside. So vanilla extract. Yeah there we go. As we did with the rest. And of course 15 ml or a half ounce of your dark rum. That's all you need to do. Beautiful. Here we are. Give it a gentle stir. It will incorporate anyway staying in the fridge. And this is done. The maceration process. The second process which was extracting the flavor of the actual banana fruit with the sugar overnight to extract all the flavor. Then adding a little bit of water, rum and vanilla extract. Just cooking for less than five minutes just to help the water to incorporate with the syrup. Strain it. Leave the banana as it is to strain to the last drop. If you want to make it more creamy press these bananas through the sieve to introduce some of the pulp inside in the syrup. And the final one is the sauce vial. So this is it my lovely friends. I know I mentioned it's gonna be a number four like a extra. So let's do it. Shall we? There you go. Number four. Number four is pretty simple. We're gonna go with a jigger here just to show you what I mean. So you're gonna go with a 50 ml of the oleosaccharum or the macerated syrup which is from the peels. And I'm gonna use this because it's still dripping. So this is the cooked version or you can use the sauce vial. It doesn't matter which one of both. But you're basically gonna mix two syrups in one. Simple as that. So you're gonna have two techniques mixed in one. Give it a little stir and there you go. As you can see it's still darker but it's lighter than the maceration. But obviously, oh that's beautiful, it's introducing both flavors from the peels and from the fruit. So it's going to be extremely rich in flavor. It's going to use different characters of a taste and aromas. It will be fantastic for any rum cocktail. Especially if you do rum banana old-fashioned or something like that. It's just insanely good. So here we go. We use six bananas and we create four different expressions of banana syrup with a different characteristic and different purpose of use. So I hope you enjoyed this video. I know it's long but as always you can pause, you can come back to it. That's the purpose of this channel. This is nothing to be rushed. For me it's very important for you to understand every step of the way and explain everything perfectly so you don't have any kind of doubts what you're doing. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please hit this like button, subscribe to the channel, leave us a comment, share ideas or requests, anything. Get in touch. If not here, you can get in touch on Instagram on JustShake or Stirno Mixology Hacks. I'm not doing another Instagram account, there's no point. But yeah, you can always get in touch with me if you have any ideas and I'll see you next time with another mixology hack. Until then, stay safe and yeah, go get some bananas and do some syrups. Bye-bye!