Vanilla Beans - Soak or don't soak

[1971hemicuda]

ok...so i brewed a pretty smokey imperial porter, which i'm wanting to add some vanilla favor to....so, here is my question

some people say to soak the beans in spirits (bouron, vodka, rum) 2 weeks prior, some say to just add directly to the secondary, some say to boil. so, what should I do??

I know people have had GREAT results with making the tincture/extract with spirits but has anyone just added directly to secondary??

 

[ChocolateMaltyBalls]

I've put'em in the keg, and it came out great. It's not like oak, I don't think you can really over do it with the beans as long as you keep it reasonable. If you don't keg then treat it like dry hopping.

 

[LandoLincoln]

I've put them in secondary before without any tincture or anything. Worked out great. Took second place in some small homebrew competitions.

 

[1971hemicuda]

How long do you let them soak in the secondary?? I've had 1 bean/gallon in for about 4 days...nothing....nothing but smoke that is LOL

 

[LandoLincoln]

I think I had mine in secondary for 10 days.

 

[1971hemicuda]

Thanks for all the advice! I'll be checking it again this weekend and see where i'm at!

 

[eko]

I soak mine in bourbon. The last porter I made with vanilla beans I used 2 Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans - 0.2oz when weighed. I took a knife and split them to expose the insides, and sliced them into 1-2 inch strips. Soaked in 2 oz bourbon for 8 days, which was just enough to cover them. Then when I added to secondary I used a muslin bag, held open over the mouth of the carboy, and poured the beans into the bag. That way the extract flowed right out into carboy. This was for about 3.5 gallons of liquid. I also added a little bourbon soaked cacao. Then after being so careful, I accidentally dropped the bag into the carboy before I had a chance to tie it off. Oh well. It was delicious. I let it soak about 2.5 weeks until I had time to bottle.

Even better was the 1 gallon I split off and added cacao and roasted habaneros to. Spicy goodness.

 

[bragona71]

I scraped my beans out into vodka, next time I will use bourbon and I think I will just split the bean instead of scrape

 

[ChocolateMaltyBalls]

Given enough time (like a week) the alcohol in a big beer will extract the vanilla flavor, IMO the benefits of making an extract are that you save some time because vodka will extract all there is to extract over a day or two, and you can more precisely dial in how much vanilla flavor you want.

 

[adamranders]

I soak them in bourbon. I split them and scrap the"seeds" out of the bean and mix the seeds and bean in to the bourbon, after a few weeks I remove the bean halves and dump the bourbon, seed mixture in.

 

[Egs21eric]

Executive Chefs/Bakers from around the world enjoy all the stuff Nielsen Massey put out, trust me I have to buy it all the time for our Chefs/Bakers here at work. You can make the paste rather easily as well, I split and scraped 3 Madagascar beans, and added it to a couple ounces of bourbon and lactose for a vanilla milk stout. Hopefully the seeds actually show up in the head, that would be awesome (2 weeks to wait......). I am also going to try their coffee extract and vanilla bean powder for some future brews.

http://www.nielsenmassey.com/culinary/products-madagascar-bourbon-pure-vanilla-bean-paste.php

http://www.thespicehouse.com/
^awesome shop to buy vanilla beans, and other adjuncts.

 

[1971hemicuda]

I make my own vanilla extract with Vodka and vanilla beans. So, I totally get WHY you would make the extract. I just wasn't sure if the beer itself would be alright with extracting the flavor.

I guess I will figure that out.

That being said....If its not enough vanilla, i'll just add some of my homemade vanilla extract to bump it up

 

[Lock_Down]

I've used a different brand of vanilla powder in the past in glazes for baked goods and it had a off taste. My boss considered ordering it to use at the culinary school I worked at and everyone that used it could taste the difference. Look at the ingredients list on the website, the vanilla powder contains cornstarch.