Vanilla bean question.

So I got a German amber ale extract kit coming in the mail, and I was talking to a co-worker who gave me ths idea to use vanilla as an adjunct. I want to go with the whole bean, my questions is how many beans should I use for 5 gallons and when should I add the beans. Thank you.

I did this and didn't work. I just put the beans into the secondary.

Then a friend of mine made a porter and it worked great. He put the beans in really hot water for a few seconds in hopes of semi sterilizing them (don't know if that's needed), then he split the beans open lengthwise and scrapped the inside vanilla paste like stuff out and put it in the secondary. I think he used 2-3 beans in a 5 gal batch. The vanilla taste came through nice.

Hope that gets you going in the right direction with some help from other posters.

thanks i am going to give that a try

here is wisdom.

Mahr.

Their weissbier has a vanilla profile. Yes it sounds creepy at first, but it works.
the trick is to be gentle with it.

if you add vanilla extract, add about half of what you think you should add.

A little goes a long way.

If using extract I highly suggest getting a metered pipette. I have some that is marked in .25ml increments. I added 10ml to a 5.5g final volume at bottling time and its there but you can't pick it out easily. I say pour a 12-16oz beer thats similar to what you're making and add a bit of vanilla extract to that. If its its too much cut it back and then extrapolate the volume needed for the whole batch.

clendenningp said:

So I got a German amber ale extract kit coming in the mail, and I was talking to a co-worker who gave me ths idea to use vanilla as an adjunct. I want to go with the whole bean, my questions is how many beans should I use for 5 gallons and when should I add the beans. Thank you.

Click to expand...

I made a stout last fall and used vanilla beans in the secondary. I tried finding decent quality beans. I ended up getting them at Whole Foods. They looked a lot better than the ones found in the everyday grocery stores. These were moist. I believe there were 3 beans in the vial/jar. I split them open with a knife and replaced them in the orginal jar and filled it with Jack Daniels and let it sit overnight before adding them to the secondary at transfer time. The taste was nice, but I'd probably add at least one more bean next time.

Another thought for buying beans. You could probably look for a good ethnic store that's either Asian, or Indian and check around. I bet if you have some good stores around you could get vanilla beans a much lower prices than the premiums a grocery store would charge.

Hey Guys,

I would recommend adding the vanilla bean to the secondary as well. The alcohol is necessary for extracting the flavor from the vanilla bean.

+1 for beanilla. I ordered from them when I made a nut brown. Add to secondary because like another poster said, the alcohol helps extract the flavor. When I made mine I scrapped out the insides, and chopped up the skin of the bean and added everything to secondary.

Not really worried about sanitization since any nasties from the bean would be steralized from the alcohol in the secondary. <--take that with a grain of salt.

I've made 2 Vanilla POrters so far. First time, I soaked 3 beans in a cup of vodka for a week then added it all to secondary. This lead to way too much vanilla flavor. I currently have 3 gallons of porter that I added just one 7 inch bean, split and scraped into secondary for 1 week only. I think the vanilla/porter ratio on this beer is perfect. Next time I make a full 5 gallon batch of porter I will simply split and scrape 2 vanilla beans right into secondary for one week, then keg and carb.