For those here who make or have made their own vanilla extract, I have some high quality beans and I'd like to make both single and double fold vanilla extract.

I have some questions I am hoping our Sigforum chefs will answer:

Which recipe do you use to make your extract? What proof alcohol do you use? Do you use Everclear, vodka, or something else?

How do you prepare the pods? What type of bottle do you use?

How many months do you soak the prepared vanilla pods in the solution?

1/4 lb beans cut in 1/4"-1/2" pieces (used a new pet toe nail clipper)
quart canning jar
fill with vodka (cheap)
6 weeks
strain out the beans
done

quote:

Originally posted by eyrich:
1/4 lb beans cut in 1/4"-1/2" pieces

Did you open up the beans along the long axis to expose the seeds before you cut them in pieces?

Seen the price of vanilla beans lately? Unbelievable!

quote:

Originally posted by eyrich:
1/4 lb beans cut in 1/4"-1/2" pieces (used a new pet toe nail clipper)
quart canning jar
fill with vodka (cheap)
6 weeks
strain out the beans
done

no, just cut them to length and soaked

Y"all are wasting your beans!
WHOLE beans soaking in Cheap vodka, as you use any vanilla add more vodka in the same beans.
I use 6 beans in an old tomato sauce jar.

We split ours lengthwise. Stick it in Mason jars and stick in the back of the pantry.

We usually let's ours sit for about 6 months. We also make a boubon based version for certain types of dessert like bourbon pecan pie

I pour a shot from a bottle of vodka to make a little space and drop the cut pieces of beans into the bottle. I'm currently on my third batch with the same beans. First batch took two months, second took six months, so I'm guessing a year for this one. I have Tahitian beans, but I think Madagascar are more common. Some people use Bourbon rather than vodka.

We used brandy here.

I made the double fold extract today. I think my hands are going to smell like gourmet vanilla beans for a week.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to help me with this.

How do you know when it's done?

My grandma used to say, "when it looks right". I suppose it's one of those types of deals?

And never toss the beans. When you're done, throw them in the dehydrator, then grind them in a spice grinder and use the powder to boost the vanilla flavor of just about anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
How do you know when it's done?

I'm going to leave the vanilla beans in the solution for 6 months to a year. It started to look dark after a few hours.

There are a LOT of beans in each quart. I weighed the beans using a calibrated gram scale. With ~47.5% alcohol and double the normal weight of beans, hopefully it will work well. I will shake the mixture up on a regular basis for a while then let it be.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
And never toss the beans. When you're done, throw them in the dehydrator, then grind them in a spice grinder and use the powder to boost the vanilla flavor of just about anything.

Thank you for the suggestion, and good luck with your new chocolatier venture. With your food talents, that should be a great success.