Vanilla Extract

Another easy one: Vanilla Extract. In essence, the idea goes something like, "chop up some vanilla beans, put into a jar with some distilled spirit or another, let sit." There are certainly ways to optimize and modify this, but that's the whole of what's necessary. Let's take a quick look at the steps:

Take some vanilla beans

Chop them up, partially to expose the insides, and partially so it'll fit in your container

Add to a jar

Add some distilled spirit or another, such as grain alcohol

Or maybe piratical spiced rum

Let sit for a a month or six, shaking it up every week or so.

And there you have it. So, if you want to play, what can you do to modify things? Well, obviously you can change the substance it's sitting in. Most people use Vodka, because it's inexpensive, easy to get, and has very little flavor of its own. I had some grain alcohol sitting around, so I decided to go with that for my no-flavor-added version, to see what sort of ultra-pure vanilla goodness I could get. On the other hand, I had some spiced rum, and I thought, "hey, that might be a neat way to get extra flavor into certain types of cookies, cakes, puddings, or whatever. Let's try that."

The other factors are the type of beans, the amount of beans, and how long you let it sit. The type of beans is an obvious change, as different beans have different flavors. As you're shopping around, you'll see descriptions of which type of bean has what kind of flavors, but your best bet is to just try it out. If you aren't buying the beans at the $8/bean price, you have a lot more flexibility in usage.

The amount of beans will modify the strength of the vanilla. If you've heard of double-strength vanilla (or even triple- or more), then this is what they are referring to. The spiced rum I used enough to make what should turn out to be a double-strength vanilla, because I figured with the extra spice flavor, I'd just make it bursting with flavor. If I'd wanted something that emphasized the spice over the vanilla, I would have used less vanilla. For the basic vanilla, I used what should turn into single strength.

The time is the last factor. Time will affect the character of the vanilla, by and large. I haven't played around with vanilla that much, so I'm not entirely sure how much, but with extracts you generally get a shallow flavor with just a little extraction, then somewhere in the moderate range you get a full extraction with lots of complex flavors, and if it leave it too long you start pulling out flavors that you don't really want.

Which leads to finishing. Once you've extracted all the flavor you want, one option is to filter out all of the solid particles and leave just the liquid. This will stop the extraction and make it nice and clear. Or you could let it go and see how the flavor changes over time. Take some notes if you do this, and see if you get to an ideal extraction amount for your tastes.

If you want to go mad with vanilla power, Instructables has a very, very thorough post on how to make vanilla extract that goes in detail on a lot of the items that I've glossed over, including the idea proof to extract vanilla with (high is not necessarily better), different types of beans, and so on. On the other hand, if you just want to give it a try and see what happens, grab some beans, grab some distilled spirit or another, and give it a go. It can be as simple or in-depth as you want.

Comments

[Lisa]

Another great post! Thanks for the tip on the bulk vanilla beans site. What kind did you get the Bourbon or the grade B Tahitians? The free offer looks great as well. :)

[Brian]

Thank you. For the extract, I got the Grade B Bourbon/Madagascar. And if I hadn't been actually out of bourbon (the spirit), I would have also made some extract with that.

Because I ordered so many beans, though, I also got a free bunch of Grade A Tahitian, some of which I used in last week's Samoas.