A couple of years ago I started making my own vanilla extract at home, and wow, what a flavor difference!
It was so frustrating buying those tiny bottles of extract at the grocery store, spending good money, and then running out so fast. The thing that really sent me over the edge and into making my own was after purchasing a couple of bottles of vanilla extract from Trader Joe's that were just worthless. I love generally love that store, but not that product.
Anybody else making extracts at home?
I make my own vanilla. Just a couple of split beans in a small jar and dark rum. I top it off as needed. Now that I'm baking more, I have a second bottle brewing.
I haven't make other extracts. Any suggestions?
Sure do! I go through a decent amount of extract, paste, sugars and syrups all infused with vanilla beans. I've used vodka, dark rum and hazelnut liquor to make extract. Lots of threads on CH about different ways to go about it. My favorite way is to cut both ends off the vanilla bean and then place them standing up straight inside a jar with the liquid. The bean reacts like a straw and the liquor gets inside the pod. You wind up with a richly flavored extract and the vanilla bean paste you can literally squeeze out of the pod. Works really well. My jars sit for at least six months. The longer the better.
I started making it last year but used very good Kentucky bourbon. Gee I think I will try one of vodka and one with rum. Any brand?
I use what I enjoy drinking :) I know recommendations to buy "whatever' are common but you don't need a lot to get started, so I buy those mini bar bottles they sell behind the register.
If you have the time and interest, it might be fun to compare cheap and pricey booze. I did that with rum when I first started, since I had so many beans. If I sipped the vanilla, maybe I could tell the difference but used in bake goods, both the same. So I buy large bottles of fairly cheap rum. Your palate may differ, though.
I like Mount Gay rum. It's from Barbados, and I've been to the distillery. They do it the old fashioned way, each step by hand, and they even make their own barrels there! They have a couple of good varieties there, but I'd get the 86 proof, and it's a really great rum. Mixes well, but it's best as a "sipping whiskey" type drink. So using it for vanilla extract will surely give a REAL PUNCH to whatever you're cooking!
I started making my own vanilla ext months ago and love it! BUT I made it w a good Vodka..not rum. Whats the difference??
Twice a year, I buy pods from this CA seller.
http://www.theposter.com/vanilla2.html
Best prices I have found for freshness, flavor profile and price.
When my sis returned from a trip to Tahiti with prized v. pods $35.00 (for 10 pods) we did a side by side test making extract and vanilla bean shortbread cookies and guess who won?! My pod guy.
Thanks for posting this! Trader Joe's has a really good deal on vanilla beans right now too: a two pack for $3.99 each.
The CA pod guy sells 1/2 lb, 80 vanilla beans in each bag for $25.00 chef grade. I'm no longer using vanilla sparingly.
How long can you store vanilla beans before they start to lose flavor?
I haven't hit that time period YET! I do not keep the pods out of some form of liquid though. When I use to keep them bagged dry, I'd keep them in the freezer and use them as needed. Now I keep them jarred in liquids and snip, squeeze and use whole as needed. I also use the pods ground with my coffee beans once the pod is empty of seeds.
I know you posted this a while ago, but I just want to note that I also buy from the same seller as HillJ (I like the Tahitian beans), and buy them a pound at a time. These last me about a year.
Upon receipt I split them into one ounce portions and vacuum seal each portion individually. I notice no degradation over time when I open the smaller packs, and every time I open one of them I try to use the beans fairly quickly, storing the extras in sugar as recommended on the bags.
Four ounces of beans, split and scraped, put into a quart ball jar, topped up with Lemon Hart 151 rum, and left for several months, makes an excellent and very flavorful extract.
Thanks for posting. It's always nice to read a fellow CH's success and usage.
Bumping a very old thread, but I think it's worth reporting that although a year is fine in vac bags -- and maybe even a year and a half -- I recently opened a bag that I'd sealed over 2 years ago, and it had lost a tremendous amount of aroma. (Stored in my basement, by the way, which usually hovers around 64F year round.) I made extract with the old beans and it was decent, but definitely not up to my usual standard.
So moral of the story: Keep your beans sealed, but don't leave them forever. They won't get any better with extensive aging. I believe extract does capture the aroma and holds it pretty well so for beans that are starting to show some age I think that's the best bet.
I have to second this recommendation. HillJ, you are responsible for introducing me to this seller and I thank you.
I've got plain vanilla (w/vodka), vanilla-brandy, and vanilla-pear a-brewin'.
I LOVE that seller and am very faithful to him. He's got some outrageous flavor extracts that can't be found anywhere else and for those not wanting to do homemade, his Mexican vanilla extract is in a class of its own. He uses a sugar cane alcohol (not quite rum) and smooths out the flavor with just a touch of piloncillo. He's very proud of it, as well he should be--I don't think there's another Mexican vanilla extract like it. They throw in some beans with pretty much every order and they really are gorgeous. And for the record, he's got great prices on excellent saffron.
Right there will you MacG. I'm equally loyal. At this point I have tried nearly every product they sell. Very smart operation.
Extremely smart, very hands-on (I like to do my ordering over the phone--they work for a cheaper shipping option that way), and great prices. Have you tried the mushrooms and corn smut?
I've tried a number of the dried mushrooms, happy with all. Didn't know about the corn smut :) Have you?
None of the above. . . yet. I imagine the morels are out of this world. And I have to admit that the smut has always intrigued me. I'd never heard of it until I saw it on the site, after which I did some research. :O
The link to the seller is broken now; do you have a current contact site? Thanks!
Unfortunately even from them the beans are 8x more expensive at the moment than they were in 2013/2014 when this thread started. Fingers crossed that the market contracts in the next six months!
I'm almost out of my homemade extract stash and have a couple of backup grocery store bottles. After paying $45 for a pound of Tahitian beans in 2013 I can't bring myself to pay $39 for 1/8 of a pound today.
2017 sucks!
I don't want rum, vodka or bourbon flavor in my vanilla so I make mine with grain alcohol.
Yes, I make my own vanilla and now is the time to do it with Bourbon beans from Madagascar 10 for $12 at Costco and that $30 vat of Grey Goose vodka they sell under their Kirkland name.
I know, I know! $42 doesn't sound like such a bargain but I've been working through that bottle of vodka/vanilla extract for 2 years now and I'm still only halfway down. When I get to the bottom I've still got 10 vanilla beans in there to go. ; >
Sounds good to me!!
Rainey, can you please explain how to do this? Do you put all 10 beans in the large vodka bottle at the same time or ? How long does it need to steep until it's ready to use? Thanks!
Yes, I dump them all in the bottle and let it sit for the year. The following year I pour off bits into small bottles for gifts. I stick on of the still intact beans in each bottle.
I pour off my own supply through the year and I add to that the empty pods when I use the seeds in baking.
There's very little process to this. It takes a few months to develop a punch of flavor but, beyond that, it's sorta like falling out of bed. Once you get this started it's just like an endless spring of the stuff.
Once you get this started it's just like an
I make my vanilla. Vodka and lots of beans - I use a kitchen shears to cut mine into half inch pieces - I've got good dark extract in about 30 days. Splitting the beans (particularly the amount I use) is just way too fussy for me. Like HillJ, I get mine for about the same price only I think the place I get mine from are in PA somewhere (it's been a year - I stocked up and made an insane amount of extract last year).
Penzey's sells 3 beans for $9.35. I spend about 50 cents a bean.
Yeah, I usually say.if you want to spend more money be my guest but vanilla beans do not have to be expensive. The chef grade held strong against v. beans bought in Tahiti. That's all the convincing I need.
Is it possible that the beans you bought were Madagascar or Mexican? Because the flavor profile for the three types are very different and if you happen to prefer the flavor of the other two to that of Tahitian, that would tend to skew your results. And incidentally, the Tahitian beans and extract made from them sold by our seller are from Papua New Guinea (PNG), or at least they were last time I checked.
At this point I've bought 4 diff beans. Sold at different times and I've like them all. Now I'm only making my own extract, syrups and sugar. I've experimented with different sugars, diff spirits and different concentrations.
Right now my fav is PNG with dark rum and a kick of Amaretto; sort of a vanilla/almond extract concoction.
Your concoction sounds wild! Incidentally, I don't drink but while researching maraschino juice, I read reviews stating that Luxardo's amaretto kicks Saronno's posterior. I understand it's drier, too, which might make it even better for your purposes. But might not dark rum be a little overwhelming with the floral quality of the PNG's?
I have a constant bottle going in a wine bottle sized bottle with a ceramic & rubber cork. I pull out the old beans and put new ones in when it stops steeping out vanilla flavor. I also use Grey Goose vodka rather than cheap vodka or grain alcohol. I think it is worth it, you get no alcohol afterkick if you use it in something that doesn't burn off the alcohol.
We have a huge (kilo) batch brought back from Tonga. I buy good drinkable vodka and do a few batches at once. I never toss the beans, just keep adding to the jar and top off.
I don't use rum. Just a preference. Grain alcohol and vodka are the same thing more or less. Expensive vodka is a waste of $.
Personally I can taste the vodka when I made vanilla with it. It tasted like vanilla vodka.
I do have grain alcohol but it had to be special ordered. Not common in NY. I am not a vodka drinker so the taste does not stand out.
I may make a batch with cognac as opposed to rum.
Does potato vodka taste different than that made from grain? I'm sure that answer is yes but I cant tell. I tend to buy Lukasowa, which is potato.
I find that means it needs more time. Eventually you stop getting that harsh alcohol smell and it smells sweet like vanilla. It just gets better up to two years. I use Smirnoff. I use beans purchased from the Saffron Vanilla website. I split the beans in half lengthwise. I add 13 oz per gallon for single fold, or double for double fold. I wait until it smells right to use it.
I also keep some beans (cut in half crosswise) sitting in vodka. I squeeze out the seeds when I need them.
Plus, I dry used pods for vanilla sugar. You can even grind them into the sugar. No waste!
I've been making my own for years with beans from Vanilla Products USA, which are crazy cheap: http://stores.ebay.com/Vanilla-Produc...
You should get a Costco bottle. Huge.
I have a little bottle of white rum that I put the empty pods in whenever I've scraped the seeds out.
Making my own vanilla extract has been a game changer. I use vodka as the base. I once got creative and tried making almond, lemon and mint extracts. The most successful was the lemon extract. The mint had a weird brown colour... not ideal.
Easiest DIY ever! I'm not much of a baker, so still using up a modest jar from fall of two years ago. A great host/hostess gift for people who cook.
I use beans that I buy from France via eBay. At less than $20 for 100 beans, it's an excellent deal. My preference is an amber rum or reasonably good vodka. I regularly feed it, ie top up the alcohol, without needing to change the beans.
I also have a large jar of vanilla sugar on the go at all times, which is actually more economical than the extract. A teaspoon or two in a cup of sugar for a basic cake or cookie recipe adds a big flavour punch.
As for all those beans, I freeze them in double ziplock bags. They keep for a year without any loss of flavour. And if I don't use them all up, well they become the starter for the next batches of vanilla extract and sugar.
I would love to try other flavored extracts if anyway has a tested recipe.
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