Does separating/removing bananas from their “stalk” speed up or slow down the ripening process? Why would it do either? Or does it matter at all?
The key to banana ripening is the production of ethylene gas by the bananas themselves. The gas not only speeds ripening, but is produced by the ripening fruit; thus you get a positive feedback effect when bananas are kept near each other.
I’m not finding anything online on whether the stalk itself produces ethylene, but one thing a stalk does do is keep bananas in close proximity to other bananas, which speeds ripening.
We tried that once. The SO heard about it and told me. I jokingly said “but the downside is they never ripen”. Damn if that didnt appear to be the case!
Havent repeated it yet to see if it was some strange fluke, but it certainly appeared to work quite well.
as mentioned leaving in a bunch would speed ripening for the whole bunch.
if you don’t want the whole bunch to ripen then separate the bananas from each other. if you would like one to ripen a bit faster then put it in a small paper bag.
If you want to ripen it a LOT faster, put it in a paper bag with a ripe apple or whole cantaloupe, both higher volume ethylene producers.
Although this won’t be helpful to most of you, the only way I have found to slow down the ripening process of bananas is to leave them attached to the stalk on the banana plant.
When the banana fruit starts to ripen, I cut off a few “hands” and bring them into the kitchen and put them into a paper bag. These ripen quite quickly while the fruit on the stalk continues to ripen much slower.