Vanilla Beans

Brewing a Vanilla Weizen tomorrow afternoon and it only came with one vanilla bean to add to the secondary. I was looking for a fairly strong but not overpowering vanilla flavor to the brew. A bit more than the aroma/aftertaste the kit advertises. Should I just use another vanilla bean or two? Or go with a few drops of vanilla extract? Thanks in advance.

Joe

I've seen recipes that use 1 bean in the primary and 1 in the secondary. Use your 1 bean now and go hunting for the second.

I would not use the vanilla extract unless it was REAL vanilla like from Mexico.

I recently made a coffee porter with vanilla. I used two beans, and got more vanilla presence than I had actually been aiming for. I think that one bean would add a noticeable vanilla aspect, but two should definately give you that vanilla flavor you want. I don't think I'd do more than three, and that only if you want vanilla to be the prominent flavor of the beer.

You will only need one bean, cut it lenghtwise scrape and soak it in a shot of your favorite alcohol, I use 12 y/o scotch. I added 2 beans to a stout thinking since it was a stout it could use a little extra and it was too much.

homebrewer_99 said:

I've seen recipes that use 1 bean in the primary and 1 in the secondary. Use your 1 bean now and go hunting for the second.

I would not use the vanilla extract unless it was REAL vanilla like from Mexico.

Click to expand...

I used Bourbon Vanilla for my latest vanilla beer, and it turned out better than I had anticipated. Bought a big bottle of it at Costco for $8.00. It's (supposedly) real vanilla extract.

Cheesefood said:

I used Bourbon Vanilla for my latest vanilla beer, and it turned out better than I had anticipated. Bought a big bottle of it at Costco for $8.00. It's (supposedly) real vanilla extract.

Click to expand...

How much extract did you use?

When I use beans I split them, or score them and let the sit in the secondary. The primary fermentation process will "scrub" the bean and leave littel original (fresh) flavor in your beer. I also transfer the bean into the keg, but if you bottle it should still be just as good. I also buy my vanilla beans from Arizona Vanilla Company because its fresh and cheap. They had a free shipping special and I spent $3.50 on two fresh clean perfect beans (pretty good since I spend $6 on apricot flavoring). I know you can find cheaper, or more beans on ebay for that price... but I like have a solid sorce, and its not that bad of a price.

Split them, and soak them in beer. The alcohol and mild fermentation of the secondary should extract enough flavor to be subtle yet expected(1 bean per 5 gallons in secondary).


Thats my two cents

By the way, the way I added the vanilla bean was like this:

Cut bean down the middle, scraped it out as best I could, cut bean up into 1/4" pieces, added all to about 1 cup water, brought to boil and simmered for about 10 mins, let cool to room temp, added to carboy just before aerating wort/pitching yeast.

Bought another vanilla bean at Wild by Nature grocery store, going to split, scrape, cut up, boil for 10 mins again and add to secondary fermenter, should have a nice vanilla aroma/flavor right??