Sanitizing ingredients before placing them in secondary

Hi Guys -

I am brewing a vanilla porter at the moment. I am getting ready to transfer to the secondary and add my vanilla beans, however I am not sure if I need to sanitize the beans before putting them in the secondary. Could sanitizing the beans kill their flavors or give them off flavors ? Could putting the unsanitized beans in my secondary contaminate my batch ? All advice is appreciated.

Thanks

From what I have read (mostly on this site) is those who add and are concerned with infection either boil to create a tea and add or create a tincture with vodka and add. In both cases I have seen those who add just the tea or both the tea and vanilla.

Even a quick search on this site should yield plenty of advice on the topic.

Good luck - sounds Yummy!

1. Adding vanilla bean direct to secondary "could" infect the beer.
2. Boiling the beans in water for 10 minutes allow to cool covered will sterilize them. As long as you add the water and beans you should be fine. Use distilled or RO water if your tap water has chlorine.
3. Soaking them in vodka for several days will also sanitize them and the flavor impact will be minimal if any.

For vanilla beans, im a fan of chopping them up, covering them in water and simmering them for a minute to sanitize. Cool and then add all the contents into the beer. The simmering water will have a lot fo vanilla character pulled out

Ive never sanitized my vanilla beans they seemed just fine. Maybe its because I buy them sealed well in a jar from whole foods?

martyjhuebs said:

Ive never sanitized my vanilla beans they seemed just fine. Maybe its because I buy them sealed well in a jar from whole foods?

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+1

Drinking my vanilla bourbon porter right now. I just dropped the vanilla beans into the primary without any issues.

I actually spray mine down with star san - cutting board, knife, beans, everything

Does heat affect the flavor of vanilla? Are you using commercial vanilla beans that have already been sanitized/pasteurized in some way?

I did a pumpkin ale with vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, etc etc and didnt boil any of the spices. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Fortune favors the bold!

Does the star San affect the bean's flavor in anyway ? I was worried about this.

The beans I got came vacuum sealed in a pouch. I assumed that they came this way to preserve them.

It seems like there are differing opinions on just dropping the bean's in as is vs people who soak them in alcohol. I think I will just drop the bean's in for this batch, with the possibility of doing a bourbon vanilla porter in the future

I've just finished fermenting a vanilla bourbon porter (Denny Conn's recipe). Vanilla went in without sanitising because that's what Denny does.