Using Vanilla Bean in Secondary at Cold Crash Temperatures

[Brewmegoodbeer]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone has used vanilla beans in their fermenter at cold crash temperatures (in the 30's) vs. using them in the 60's. I do not know if it will make a difference, but I am just making sure.

 

[EcuPirate07]

I'll tell you in a couple days. I did the same thing, 2 day soak in vodka then right in at 36 degrees. The purpose of cold crashing is to settle everything out so it might go straight to the bottom. If you don't get any vanilla flavor you can always redo it and add it to the keg.

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

I'll tell you in a couple days. I did the same thing, 2 day soak in vodka then right in at 36 degrees. The purpose of cold crashing is to settle everything out so it might go straight to the bottom. If you don't get any vanilla flavor you can always redo it and add it to the keg.

Let me know what you find and ill let you know what I find too. I just added 2 vanilla beans that I soaked in vodka the past couple of weeks. Ill be dropping the temp to 32 in 2 days and holding it there for 5 days or so. My thought is that since we are extracting the oils from the vanilla bean for oil and oil will float within beer, I don't think it will drop. The same thing with hops. We extract the oils for aroma and they don't drop out when you cold crash. We will see. Im suprised there is no info on this online.

 

[EcuPirate07]

So I kegged tonight. Im not getting much vanilla flavor. But I only did 2 bean scraped and also chopped up 1 bean and soaked all of it in vodka for 7 days. This round I only did 1 bean scraped and only soaked the inside for 2 days and added no bean because I was trying to bring the cocoa nib (chocolate)flavor forward and was told you could do it with vanilla. So take this for what it's worth.

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

How many beans did you add scraped and chopped in vodka? How long did you leave it in the fermenter?

 

[EcuPirate07]

Just one beans inside. No bean itself.

 

[Honda88]

the oil wont drop out it will stay on top of the beer. I can actually still see the vanilla oil when I pour my beer into a glass. You will probably get better extraction at a higher temperature but I'm not sure if it would be enough to be noticeable. I added beans to my secondary with an oatmeal stout for about a week and I did get decent vanilla flavor. I think I added 2 beans and I was at room temp about 70 degrees. Its not super noticeable as I don't really like any one flavor to be overwhelming my beers.