A friend of mine recently made a batch of homemade vanilla. She decided she didn’t make enough, and I like doing homemade things, so we want to make a larger batch. Her first batch was in a small soy sauce bottle.
I think we’re going to do a 750ml bottle of vodka. For some reason, several people have given me bottles of vodka - I have four in my cabinet right now, and two aren’t even open. And I don’t drink vodka very often. I do need to check if the bottles I have are decent enough - I have a bottle of Absolute 100, which is too strong, and a bottle of “Russian Standard Vodk”.
I’ve read that I can get a good deal on beans if I order extract quality, and go mail order. Does anyone have a source they’ve used that they like?
Once it’s done, I’ll want to transfer it to smaller bottles for easy use, or gifts. Any advice on something cute to use? Also, any reason I shouldn’t keep it all in the big bottle until then? Or, the other direction, any reason I should make many small batches instead of the one big batch?
Any other misc. advise? I know to keep it in a dark, cool location, and to shake it regularly at the beginning.
A couple of years ago, I made vanilla extract for the Hallgirls and I. I bought three big bottles of vodka. (Smirnoff, maybe?) Added vanilla beans and stuck them in the pantry for about three months. My bottle lasted me for about a year, during which I simply added more vodka and let it sit.
They’re pretty much the same thing. For baking extract you want to get a ton of vanilla flavor in the vodka so you only need a to use a small amount and when it (mostly) evaporates during the baking you get the vanilla flavor left over.
I would guess for drinking you would want something milder.
ETA: Next time you’re at the grocery store check out the label of the vanilla extract. It’s got a good bit of alcohol.
I’m specifically interested in baking with the results.
Based on the responses, I assume no one here has experience with extract grade beans? I see some good references for where to buy grade A beans, but no one bit on the extract question.
I’ve used it in baking, in smoothies…any way I’d use “regular” vanilla extract.
I’m not familiar with extract grade beans (Grade B beans?), or how they would differ from Grade A beans. You’d be dropping them in vodka (or some recipes I’ve seen use brandy), so would it really make that much of a difference if they were Grade A or B?
I actually wonder if Everclear/grain alcohol would work better. Whenever I make infusions, I typically start with a 191 proof grain alcohol and then dilute down after extracting all the goodness out of it.
Grade B/extract grade is supposed to be much cheaper…and actually produce a little better result for the volume, because it’s more vanilla and less water. Or something like that.
I was hoping someone had a site they liked for that. I’ll have to figure out if I want to spend more money on a known good site (thanks for the links, everyone), or if I want to risk the grade B stuff without a trusted reference.
I would do amber rounds. Amber is a classic color for vanilla extract, both setting the expectation for the earthy sweet odor and hiding what’s a rather ugly extract. I get a lot of my bottle supplies from Majestic Mountain Sage, but you can find them on many websites.
Make a little tag out of card stock, cut the edges with some pretty pinking shears or scalloped scissors, and then punch a hole in the corner. Thread some raffia or coarse twine in the hole and tie it around the neck of the bottle. You can also/instead use waterproof inkjet label stock to make a custom label, either with your printer or by writing on them with permanent markers.
I wouldn’t use Everclear for vanilla extract. The compounds that give vanilla its wonderful flavor and odor are mostly the water soluble ones. The essential oils, that extract better in the non-polar alcohols, are actually kind of nasty. Using too high an alcohol content will give you bitter, off tasting extract. You want all those water soluble compounds and few of the alcohol soluble ones.
When you want the highest proof possible is for those plants that have hydrophobic compounds - oils, resins and essential oils - that you want in the final tincture. These are ones that tend not to extract well in water, like milk thistle seeds.
ETA: Here’s a recipe for vanilla extract from an herbalist grower that I respect very much. I’m fairly sure this is the one I used, the only time I’ve made it. It was really good. Note that they’re briefly simmered and soaked in water even before alcohol is added. So if you’re using, roughly, equal parts water and vodka, you want something around 100 proof, so your final product has about 25% alcohol. That’s what’s needed for preservation, to prevent microbial growth. https://www.horizonherbs.com/product.asp?specific=2162
^ Good to know. I’ve never tried it with vanilla. I know stuff like limoncello and most bitters I’ve made usually start with the grain alcohol, but I’ve actually never used vanilla in any of my infusions, somehow.