Anyone can make vanilla. They just need to start with some vanilla.
Hey, that’s my grandmother’s secret recipe!
The thread had gotten a little long and no one had pointed out how easy it is to make vanilla extract. I wouldn’t have said anything if it took more than a couple steps.
You’d need a chemistry teacher & lab to make the artificial stuff.
I’m sure any college student that completed a few chemistry classes could make it too.
Yeahbut-- He said he didn’t want the vanilla in alcohol recipe in the second sentence of his OP.
And in the OPs second post (post 14), he said he is currently soaking vanilla beans in vodka as well.
Yes, because that was not what the OP asked about. In fact they stated in the OP that they asked this question here because all the google results where for making vanilla extract, which wasn’t what they wanted to do.
There’s always hydroponic vegetables. I suggest you give them a go. Not that I just bought a lot of stock in that industry or anything …
When did you get your replacement bottle? $35 will barely buy 4 oz. of good vanilla nowadays, so I would be very suspicious of 16 oz. for that price. There have been instances of Mexican vanilla being cut with the crap noted above, so I only buy Madagascar.
Like crap or crap as in ‘shit’? Y’all seriously don’t like for me to eat. This thread has gone to the crapper, for reals.
Since this thread has strayed in the direction of comparing various vanilla/vanillin products in price, I’ll just note that vanilla beans can be bought in relatively inexpensive quantities compared to vanilla extract and used (in a very simple home preparation) to make vanilla sugar, which can be substituted for vanilla extract.
One vanilla bean makes about 2 cups of vanilla sugar which is used in a 3:2 ratio in place of vanilla extract; i.e., it’s equivalent to about one-and-a-third cups of extract. Considering that a pack of 5 vanilla beans can be purchased for about twenty bucks, that’s not a bad deal.
As a quick look, Aldrich sells a synthetic food grade, certified halal, certified kosher, meeting the purity specs of the JECFA. Purity spec on Aldrich’s spec sheet by GC is 97%. I believe it’s generally recrystallized for its final purification. Impurities are most likely to include the last couple of intermediates, so most likely vanillylmandelic acid and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenylglyoxylic acid. The recrys solvent is probably along the lines of a USP class 3 solvent (this is a pharma guidance and not necessarily a food spec) and my first guesses would be water, ethanol, or perhaps 2-butanone.
Remember that vanilla extract is actually going to be less pure than the synthetic.
You can get a kilo of the stuff (it’s a solid, by the way) for $66.
Funny enough, I just got back from Costco, and happened to double check the vanilla prices. The Kirkland vanilla was $34.95 for a 16 oz bottle. It is this one. The ingredients are “vanilla bean extractives in water” and 35% alcohol. There’s no indication of the source of the beans, other than they are “imported vanilla beans” extracted and bottled in the US. I’m no vanilla expert, but it was suitable for my purposes.
Oh, and I guess technically it isn’t marketed under the “Kirkland” brandname. It has no brand name on the labeling. The old bottle I had did. There’s a little Reddit thread here where a poster states it’s not marketed as “Kirkland” anymore, because it didn’t meet Costco’s standards. I don’t know if it does or not, but back when it was $10 a bottle and branded as Kirkland, I thought it was really good. I’m not about to spend $35 to compare, though.
The Kirkland label change is likely just due to the vanilla extract not currently being a good value, thanks to the price hikes.
I’m a bit puzzled by the prices referenced here. I found this link which gives prices of $19.99 and $10.99 for around 4 oz (118 ml)of Nielsen Massey Pure Vanilla Extract. Meanwhile in the UK it’s around £10 for 4 oz of the same product or here we have Sainsburys own brand £1.50 for 38 mls.
Am I missing something or are the grocery stores in the US ripping you off?
Edited to add that Nigella Lawson reckons you can use the same pod for vanilla sugar for several years which must be the most economical way 
I just looked in my pantry. I have a nearly full bottle of McCormick pure vanilla extract and a small bottle of Watkins vanilla extract, never opened( don’t remember buying that, it has a sticker price on it $9.99) and largish bottle of white vanillin. It has petroleum-type ingredients listed, price sticker says $5.99. I know I bought the white vanillin for some cookies that called for it. It actually smells more like almonds than vanillin. Hmmm? Interesting.
Read the reviews of the Sainsburys brand vanilla.
Okay, I didn’t download it but this article describes how a high school class was able to produce vanillin from sawdust. I figure that means the technology can’t be that high-level.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231257644_Preparation_of_vanillin_from_eugenol_and_sawdust
Thanks Little Nemo, I’ve requested the paper, but I’m pretty sure that’s second-year college students, not highschool. Still likely far outside the skills of the home cook.
asterian, I appreciate the chemical analysis. Thank you.
Kimstu, how is the vanilla sugar a benefit over a liquid extraction?
Luckily for you, this is exactly the sort of thing I’m supposed to use my ACS member access benefits for. If I’ve got this right, the procedure is basically:
Take softwood sawdust, add to a heated solution of sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, dimethyl sulfoxide, and water, and add nitrobenzene. Reflux for several hours, cool, acidify, and filter off solids. Extract with ether and let stand, decant/filter the solution from resulting solids, and extract from the ether with sodium bisulfite solution. Filter and decompose the filtrate with sulfuric acid, followed by heating while bubbling air to remove the sulfur dioxide. Extract the aqueous with more ether, dry chemically, and remove the ether (they use a steam bath) giving an oil. Extract the oil with hot cyclohexane and decant off the solvent. Evaporate the solvent under reduced pressure and partially redissolve the residue in more hot cyclohexane. Decant the solvent, cool the solvent, and collect the recrystallized product. Sublime if you want it really pure.
Their procedure turned 15 g of sawdust into 32 mg of vanillin before sublimation. The procedure looks to be tedious on a lab scale and I’d never want to run it on a process scale without major changes, although I’m sure there are expired patents out there for large scale production.
So, if you can get your hands on sodium hydroxide, DMSO, nitrobenzene, diethyl ether, sodium bisulfite, concentrated sulfuric acid, and cyclohexane and want to make milligram quantities over a couple days work, knock yourself out.