mageac

Recipes 

I have a pretty big imperial stout (1095) that I'm getting ready to rack soon on top of 3 oz of oak chips soaked in dark rum with 4 vanilla beans and I want to know if yall think I should sanitize this or if it's even necessary. my concern is if I sanitize (by pressure cooker) that a lot of flavor will be lost.

hercher

Recipes 

I've heard people say you don't have to sanitize the vanilla beans, but I would. However, you don't need to use a pressure cooker. Split the beans lengthwise, scoop all the stuff out, and throw the whole lot of it into a small ball with some vodka (or your rum, if you prefer). Give it about 12-24 hours, and dump that in with your oak chips.

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Two Kids Brewery

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Seconary: Don't use one, generally
Kegged: A Midwife's Ale (Scottish Ale), Porter, Jenna Rose IPA
Planned: Belgian Brown Ale (loosely based on Corsendonk's Brown Ale)

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br1dge

Recipes 

Agree. . Use rum or vodka or bourbon ( just enough to submerge the beans) I don't know why it would take more than 2-3 minutes though, stir them up real good, and they should be sanitize

Camping57

Recipes 

Yup, the rum soak will kill any bugs on the beans and the oak. You just need the same contact time that you would have with hand sanitizer (2-3 minutes). However, the rum will help to extract some of the flavor compounds form the beans.
You might want to think about reducing the beans some- most of the people doing big stouts are using 1 -2 beans in them. Using 4 beans might give you an overwhelming vanilla flavor. The good thing about vanilla is that if you do get it too strong you can just leave it bottled for a few months more and the flavor will fade some.