Boil, or secondary whole vanilla beans

Am going to be brewing a vanilla porter, however the question that is plaguing me is wether to boil or secondary my vanilla beans. I'm sure that someone on this forum may have experimented with this. Thanks for any insight.

You want to put them in the secondary. Split the beans lengthwise, scrape all the stuff out, and dump the lot of it into your secondary. I always soak them in some sort of alcohol to sanitize the beans, beforehand -- bourbon, scotch, vodka. Kahlua might be interesting, although you really aren't using enough of the alcohol to affect the flavor.

I did a vanilla porter recently in which I soaked two beans in vodka for a couple days, split them as described, and dumped them into the secondary for a week. It gave a very subtle vanilla flavor -- I probably should have gone another week.

I agree - put them in secondary.

I did a vanilla bean coffee stout, and here's what I did. Split the bean lengthwise down the middle and cut it in half. Soak it in a vodka for at least one night. That sanitizes the bean and also helps extract flavor. Add the tincture to your secondary fermenter. I got a nice subtle vanilla flavor. Also, you don't necessarily have to cut the bean in half, but the container I used wouldn't fit the bean otherwise, so I guess it just depends.

Agree with these posts. I made a beer recently using two vanilla beans in the secondary. Just cut the beans down the middle and scraped out the insides then threw the whole thing into boiling water for about 10 mins then dumped everything into my secondary and racked on top. No problems, fairly strong vanilla taste.

Unfortunately I thought it was a good idea to do this in a strawberry blonde, and the resulting flavor was pretty bad. Some people liked it, but I did not. Was going for a strawberry cream taste, and got a strawberry vanilla perfume type taste. Interesting, but would not do again. But definitely got the vanilla taste by using the above method!

There is absolutely no need to do any of the sanitizing procedures mentioned here. I never have and in dozens of vanilla bean uses there have been no problems.

My last vanilla porter I split 2 beans lengthwise, scoop everything out, chopped those up into 1" segments and popped everything into the primary at the end of fermentation a week before kegging. No sanitation necessary.

Came out awesome too, good luck with yours.

I wouldn't say there's "absolutely" no need, I mean you're chucking some foreign material into your beer, there's got to be situations where the beans may be not the most sanitary. Perhaps stored out on the counter for a few days...terrible idea of course, but you get the idea.

If we're all cautious about over sanitizing everything that touches our beer, the addition of the bean should be no different in my mind. Who knows weather the alcohol does anything to really sanitize, but it does extract the flavor well.

Besides the alcohol content, the low pH of the finished beer makes it very resistant to infection. I've put chanterelle mushrooms in beer, freshly picked from the woods behind my house and with no more sanitation than brushing the dirt off, and it's never been a problem.

Denny said:

There is absolutely no need to do any of the sanitizing procedures mentioned here. I never have and in dozens of vanilla bean uses there have been no problems.

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Hey Denny, do you think that soaking them in vodka or whiskey increases the flavor you get out of the vanilla?

I soaked a bean in whiskey along with oak, and noticed a strong vanilla smell when I dumped it all into secondary, but wondering how it compares to just tossing the bean in secondary without a soak. (I agree, it's not needed for sanitization)

I did a vanilla porter and I soaked two beans in about 8oz of vodka for about 6 weeks. This was the only time I have used vanilla, so I can't speak to the other methods, but my method turned out really well. It has a nice round/subtle vanilla flavor that isn't too over powering. I have noticed that the vanilla flavor does fade as time goes by.

Sweet thanks all!! I will just chuck them in the secondary have any of you ever boiled them? Just curious what the effect would be. If not I may try an experiment.

jeburgdo said:

Hey Denny, do you think that soaking them in vodka or whiskey increases the flavor you get out of the vanilla?

I soaked a bean in whiskey along with oak, and noticed a strong vanilla smell when I dumped it all into secondary, but wondering how it compares to just tossing the bean in secondary without a soak. (I agree, it's not needed for sanitization)

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I didn't notice any enhanced vanilla character from soaking compared to not soaking. The beans I use these days are big, fat and juicy so I can't imagine needing to do anything wth them.

Denny said:

I didn't notice any enhanced vanilla character from soaking compared to not soaking. The beans I use these days are big, fat and juicy so I can't imagine needing to do anything wth them.

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Cool, thanks!

ahrenswett said:

Sweet thanks all!! I will just chuck them in the secondary have any of you ever boiled them? Just curious what the effect would be. If not I may try an experiment.

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Yep! Check out my post on page 1

I boiled two beans after cutting them in half and scraping the insides. Threw everything (including water) into the secondary. I only used enough water to cover the beans and to not completely evaporate. It worked just fine, lots of vanilla flavor!

I have had excellent results soaking the beans in vodka. I cut 3 beans into thirds then slice them the long way. i throw them in a whitelabs vial full of vodka on brew day then i dump that in my conditioning/ serving keg a week or two later. I make a vanilla stout this way and is the crowd favorite of all my beers.

theBFG said:

Yep! Check out my post on page 1

I boiled two beans after cutting them in half and scraping the insides. Threw everything (including water) into the secondary. I only used enough water to cover the beans and to not completely evaporate. It worked just fine, lots of vanilla flavor!

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Ahha!! Missed the boiled part lol thanks!