- What happens during maturation?
- Support maturation
- What the color reveals about the stage of ripeness:
- tips and tricks
In contrast to local fruit, bananas only ripen after they have been harvested. Because of this, they can be transported to the end consumer in the highest quality. Their color reveals a lot about the current stage of ripeness.
What happens during maturation?
When the banana is still green, the starch-sugar ratio is 20:1. During the maturation process, this is gradually reversed.
The ripening stage of bananas can be seen from the yellow colour. As soon as the yellow banana invites you to eat it, its starch-sugar balance has reversed.
Consumers can now tell by the taste. The sweet banana fruit convinces with 20 parts sugar and one part starch.
Support maturation
In order for bananas to be able to ripen into sweet temptations after harvesting, they should under no circumstances be stored in the refrigerator. A constant room temperature of 15 to 20 degrees Celsius is much better. It can also be dark.
This property of bananas is used during transport from their countries of origin. The temperature on the cargo ships will drop to 13.2 degrees Celsius. In this way, the maturation process is delayed. On arrival in the destination countries, they make a stopover in a ripening room, where the master ripener oversees the process until it is handed over to the seller.
What the color reveals about the stage of ripeness:
- Color stage 1: "Dark green" The banana is harvested.
- Color stage 2: "Light green" The ripening process has already started.
- Color level 3: "Green, a little yellow" Delivery to retailers in high outside temperatures.
- Color level 4: "Yellow, little green" Delivery to domestic retailers in Germany.
- Color grade 5: "Yellow, green tips" Perfect ripening stage for sale to end users.
- Color level 6: "Yellow" Best time to enjoy.
- Color level 7: "Yellow with brown sugar stains" Recommended to eat bananas immediately.
tips and tricks
Hobby gardeners can give the self-harvested bananas a little help as they ripen. If apples are stored together with the still green bananas, they will ripen faster.