Making homemade Vanilla....or having a Rager.

It certainly looks like I'm having a serious party...on a Thursday...at 3 in the afternoon.

But upon closer inspection, notice what showed up in my mailbox yesterday.  I may or may not be making homemade vanilla to give as Christmas presents this year.  If you feel you might be getting a Christmas present from me, please promptly forget you ever saw these vanilla beans.  Thank you.

I have never made homemade vanilla, but it's been on my to do list for quite a few years.  So, if you have considered it, but never taken the plunge to actually make your own extract, now's the time to do it.  It takes about 6 weeks to two months to really infuse the alcohol and become vanilla.  So, go on Amazon, if you want to be like me and my buddy Mary from Sweet Little Bluebird who I also convinced to do this!!!  So excited!  Be extra gourmet, just like us. 

I bought my beans from Vanilla Products USA.  They're Bourbon Extract Grade B Planifolia Vanilla Beans.  I'll report back on the quality once I have consumed my vanilla.  In a cookie. Not drunk straight from the mason jar...I think.

I have looked at so many websites and can't really give you a specific source of where I got my information.  Here are several that I compared when figuring out how I wanted to approach this culinary experiment and the ratio of beans to alcohol: Martha: 3 beans per cup of booze  Beanilla.com: 5 beans per cup of booze and then I used the recipe card that Vanilla Products USA included, very thoughtfully in my order which states: 1/4 lb of beans per quart of booze, and then I just decided to make up my own recipe.  I used 3 quarts of alcohol and 1/2 lb of beans split between the three quarts.  I'm pretty close to the 5 beans per cup that Beanilla recommends.

I also researched what kind of alcohol I wanted to use.  You can use Vodka which imparts no flavor to the vanilla or rum or bourbon, both of which will give off some of their essence to the vanilla.  Another site specified Everclear...which I'm not even sure is legal.  So, I guess do what feels right.  I am making three versions, vodka, bourbon and rum so that next time I do this, I'll know exactly what I like.

Start with nice, clean mason jars.  Pour a quart of alcohol in.  Chop off both ends of the vanilla beans.  You want the booze to run through the beans like a straw.  Then I chopped each bean in half.  I threw all the pieces, including the curly ends, in the jar.  Sealed with a clean lid and ring.  Many articles I've read says no need to split the bean lengthwise.  So, I didn't do it.

The bourbon.  Compare it to the vodka in the picture above it.  Don't pay attention to my water spots on the jar.  I just washed it.  Gosh.

Label them.  I do reuse canning lids, in such a case as this where the jar doesn't need to be sealed.  Thank you, gooseberries.

Approximately once a day you should shake your jars, tell your kids to leave mommy's science experiment alone, and get ready for Christmas by thinking about how you want to bottle this elixir up as gifts.  You can choose to leave your beans in once the appropriate time is up, or take them out.  If you leave them in, the flavor will become more complex.  Not sure what that means.

You can squeeze down each bean and release the seeds into your vanilla, and then pop your pods into a bowl of sugar and make vanilla sugar to be used later, as you like.  Or you can leave the seeds in.  So many options.  Not a clue what is the correct thing to do as I've not done it before.  Good luck to us all.

As a final note...my hands smell like heaven from chopping all those beans of goodness!  Yum!

Thanks for reading!!

Heather