Banana bread is a great snack or dessert and is a wonderful way to use bananas that have become too ripe. But can you tell if a banana is too ripe to use and needs to be discarded? Here’s how.

To get black bananas for your banana bread, they need to be left on their own for at least eight weeks. However, if your bananas have sat around this long, smell them before you bake to make sure they have not started to rot. If they have, they are officially too ripe and need to be discarded.

When you remove the skin, the banana may be syrupy, which is acceptable as long as it still smells like a banana. Even bananas that are too ripe to eat can be stored in a freezer using a Ziploc bag, which will turn dark brown or black. Although that is normal and can be baked into banana bread, if it starts to get moldy, infested with fruit flies, or begins to rot, throw it away.