Homemade Vanilla Extract!

[noboundaries]

Guessing you are getting the Mexican vanilla beans?

Ryan

In the past, Saffron sold Mexican beans. I did use those. Nowadays they only sell the two different varieties and don't specify the origin. I prefer the planifolia variety.

How do you use that much vanilla? It takes us years to go through an 8 oz. bottle.

If a recipe calls for 1 tsp, we always double whatever it calls for. I used to bake quite a bit. Not so much any more since I have to watch carbs. We also gave a lot away as gifts, which were always well received. And then there's the homemade Kahlua, Irish cream, and coffee liqueur. Also great gifts.

 

[DRKsmoking]

Homemade kaluha... uses 3 Tbsp per gallon batch. Make one every week or two. Totally not healthy!

Ryan

I remember we always had Vanilla bans in the cupboard. Dad used to make a lot of Tia Maria.
To go along with his big 10 gal crock of Beer he made almost every month ( 52 quarts ) Always a lot of his navy buddies always hanging around for some reason. lol

David

 

[Brokenhandle]

I remember we always had Vanilla bans in the cupboard. Dad used to make a lot of Tia Maria.
To go along with his big 10 gal crock of Beer he made almost every month ( 52 quarts ) Always a lot of his navy buddies always hanging around for some reason. lol

David

Tia Maria and Goldies Irish creme....mmmmmmmm! A couple of Foamhearts (RIP) recipes!

Ryan

 

[Rafter H BBQ]

Kalua

Was running low on kalua so time to mix up some more. The ingredients... 8 cups of hazelnut coffee 3 cups sugar 1/3 cup instant coffee 3 Tbsp instant vanilla 1.75 L brandy Put sugar and instant coffee into bowl, when coffee is brewed pour that into bowl and stir until sugar and instant...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

Ryan

Ryan, now I am going to have to make some of this…

 

[02ebz06]

Never tried making vanilla extract, but have made vanilla sugar.

 

[indaswamp]

I also have a batch I made in 2015.....time to make another batch. I have maybe 1 cup left in the bottle.

The vanilla paste sounds interesting. how do you make that?

 

[02ebz06]

I check several times a year. The place I order them from, Saffron.com in San Francisco, has them for $155 / lb. That's been the price for the last two years (after being north of $400/lb). The lb I bought in 2015 for $95 made 5 x 750ml bottles. I'm on the last bottle of that batch and will be making another batch this year.

Oh, and I make vanilla paste out of the leftover beans in the bottle when I empty the last of the liquid. I keep recharging the paste with vodka or bourbon then keep it in the refrigerator.

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If you want some labels, Beanilla has a PDF file.
Beanilla Labels

 

[noboundaries]

The vanilla paste sounds interesting. how do you make that?

Easy peasy. After I drain the last of the extract from the bottle, I add enough vodka (or Bourbon or rum) to the bottle to help the cut bean pieces come out of the bottle. I put them in a blender with more alcohol, then run the blender on high for 2-3 minutes until the fibers are really tiny. That goes in a jar with a lid in the fridge. It will dry out if not used often. Just add some vodka, stir, lid, and back in the fridge.

Paste is great for cookies and pies and pastries.

 

[Rafter H BBQ]

Easy peasy. After I drain the last of the extract from the bottle, I add enough vodka (or Bourbon or rum) to the bottle to help the cut bean pieces come out of the bottle. I put them in a blender with more alcohol, then run the blender on high for 2-3 minutes until the fibers are really tiny. That goes in a jar with a lid in the fridge. It will dry out if not used often. Just add some vodka, stir, lid, and back in the fridge.

Paste is great for cookies and pies and pastries.

Thanks Ray, definitely trying this!

 

[mr_whipple]

Interesting this thread popped up. I wanted to make some as a gift for my friends wife, who is constantly baking cookies cakes and all things sweet and savory. In fact she shoved a huge bag of killer chocolate brownies in my hands yesterday. Anyway, when I put "making vanilla extract" in the google machine it came up with a wide range of how to processes along with a great range of beans to vodka ratio, but at the top was King Arthurs baking, Pioneer Woman and a few other relatively well known names. I read over them and they all seemed to be close enough so I ordered some Tahitian and Mexican beans and after reading a few more places... I think the daring gourmet popped up on the list.. I decided to put 6 beans in 6 oz of vodka and see what we came up with in a few months.

In the mean time, I ran into this article while reading over at Serious Eats, so I did a little more research on the topic, and the ratio of beans to vodka is actually quite high in relation to all the recipes I found initially. Serious eats guy did a whole 750 ml bottle with 83 grams of beans in the SV at 146 for 3 hours. I'm not going to do that much, but after further reading it seems somewhere in the 20 gram beans to 6 oz booze range is supposed to give a great result. I don't have that much left over, but I'm going to order some more and give this a shot. I wonder if mixing the Mexican and Tahitian beans I have left over wold be a good idea? I dunno, but its going to happen.

I put this together just over a month ago. The Mexican doesn't seem to have as dark a tint as the Tahitian beans, but they both smell pretty good.

I'll post up the results when I get done with the SV attempt.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

Homemade kaluha... uses 3 Tbsp per gallon batch. Make one every week or two. Totally not healthy!

Ryan

My wife makes it for Christmas presents every year...

 

[02ebz06]

mr_whipple - Here's a chart I found:

 

[mr_whipple]

mr_whipple - Here's a chart I found:

View attachment 685929

Thanks! I'm cool with 1 thru 3.. especially a hula girl, but waiting sux. I'm gonna try the SV thing and see what we get.

 

[millerbuilds]

We have been doing the same thing for quite a few years. We give bottles of the Extract out at Christmas with a bottle of one of my Rubs. We order the beans online and use a 1 Gallon Glass Jar. Start the soak in February and bottle in Early December each year.

Way better than store purchased!

- Jason

 

[noboundaries]

I have ordered 1/4 lb of beans from Amazon before ordering them from Saffron.com. The beans from Amazon took months and months to get to a point where the extract was usable. They were VERY dry. The beans from Saffron were supple and more moist. The extract was usable in a month, and at max strength in less than 3 months. Huge difference IMO. I split 1 lb of beans between four 750ml bottles. Here's my original thread with pics of the first batch, the second, and a comparison.

Making Homemade Vanilla Extract

My wife and I love vanilla. We didn't understand how incredible vanilla can be until we visited Mexico for the first time and tasted their pure and traditional vanillas. Since then we've been hooked on really good vanilla. We have inexpensive source for "traditional" vanilla, a type of...

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[02ebz06]

So I thought I'd give this a try.
Got a couple latch-top bottles and 1/4 lb. of vanilla beans.
Only vodka I have in the house though is, wait for it... Vanilla flavored. Haha

Anyone see any problems with using that rather than straight vodka ?
TIA

 

[mr_whipple]

Not sure if that would be a good idea or not, but I have mixed vanilla absolut with Vernor's ginger ale. Pretty good cocktail.

 

[02ebz06]

Got it bottled. Used the Vanilla Vodka. Will have to wait and see how it turns out...
Got some Vanilla Sugar going too. Wife likes it in her coffee.

 

[noboundaries]

Got it bottled. Used the Vanilla Vodka. Will have to wait and see how it turns out...

"Absolut"-ly interested in how this tastes. Love the experiment.

I did a little online research and vanilla vodka appears to be flavored with a small amount of vanilla extract. It should "Absolut"-ly work!

Ray