Vanilla extract is in high demand at our house. I use it in just about everything I bake, we splash it liberally into pancake and French toast batter, and I use it in puddings and dessert sauces.
It's pretty expensive at the store, so for quite a while now we've been making our own in a fairly haphazard, "hey let's toss these dried-up vanilla beans we bought and then forgot about in a jar with some booze and see what happens!" fashion. The results were decent, but we decided recently that it would be neat to try in a more organized and deliberate way and then share the method so others could try it too. (We also made the lime and lemon extract pictured above.)
Supplies
Bottles/Containers
How many you need depends on how much you want to make, but ideally they should be made of brown glass, and I highly recommend a bottle. Whatever kind of container you use, wash it and allow it to dry completely before using.
We made ten bottles of vanilla extract, using these four-ounce bottles. You could go bigger or smaller depending on your preferences. (You could use a jar like we were doing but I strongly advise against it because it is a huge pain in the ass to measure liquid out of a wide-mouthed vessel like a jar - it's probably fine if you're trying this just for fun though.)
Alcohol
How much you need will depend on how much you want to make and on the proof of the alcohol you're using (see the note on dilution below).
For a pure vanilla flavor, use a neutral/tasteless alcohol like Everclear or vodka, diluted with distilled water to between 70 and 80 proof. For a more complex flavor, use a complementary-tasting alcohol like bourbon or rum, also diluted with distilled water (if necessary) to between 70 and 80 proof.
A note on dilution: From our extensive Internet research (most of which we did about a month ago and then half-forgot), we determined that the best solvent is an alcohol that's between 70 and 80 proof (or between 35 and 40 percent alcohol by volume). For alcohol made in the U.S., proof is twice the alcohol content by volume, so to determine the percent alcohol in what you're using, just divide the proof by two, and then use this handy calculator to determine the ratio of distilled water to alcohol you need.
We had been using bourbon in our previous experiments, because it has a flavor that blends will with vanilla (and we had some on hand). We wanted to try making a purer version as well this time, more similar to store-bought vanilla extract, so we also had an obliging family member bring us some 190-proof Everclear from a neighboring state. We made one version with diluted Everclear only (for a purer vanilla flavor, more suitable for baking), and one with diluted Everclear and diluted bourbon (for a more complex flavor that will work well in things like French toast, or in puddings and sauces where a long bake time doesn't deepen and enhance the vanilla flavor).
Distilled Water
If you need to dilute your alcohol, use distilled water rather than tap water, as it has fewer impurities and won't impart any weird tastes to your extract.
Vanilla Beans
By our reckoning, you want approximately one bean per ounce of liquid. We erred on the side of caution and used five beans per four-ounce bottle.
For making vanilla extract, you do not want to use the nice, plump Grade A beans you would buy and scrape the seeds out of for baking (unless you're like us and have bought some and forgotten about them for long enough that they're too dry to use except in an extract). Grade B beans work best for extract. If you can find them in a store near you, awesome. If not, you can get them online.
We bought ours at Vanilla Products USA; this 1/4 pound package was enough to make about 40 ounces of extract with beans left over to chop up and use for vanilla sugar and to flavor some middle-of-the-road whole coffee beans. Beanilla is another supplier, but their smallest bulk bean package was 1/2 pound, which was more than we needed (they sell beans in packages of one, three, five, ten, and twenty-five, but my understanding is that you get a better value by buying in bulk because bean size can vary quite a bit).
Labels
These aren't strictly necessary, but it helps to at least have the date on the bottles for future reference. We put utilitarian labels indicating the type (since we had two different blends) and date. We're going to give these as gifts for the holidays this year, so later on we'll print out some pretty labels.
Tools
- Funnel that fits the neck of your bottle/container or a syringe with a tube like we used*
- Glass measuring cup or some other volumetric measuring tool if you need to dilute your alcohol
- Clean cutting board
- Sharp knife
Process
Line up your containers. Divide up your beans (I recommend approximately five beans per four ounces of liquid, just to make sure the resulting extract is sufficiently vanilla-y) first.
In terms of preparing the beans, some sources I found suggested cutting the beans in half and scraping out the seeds as one would do for cooking, then chopping the skins into smaller pieces and placing the seeds and skins in the container; others suggested that merely chopping the beans would suffice.
In our previous attempts, we didn't scrape the seeds out and the results were good (and we are lazy), so we opted to chop the beans into half to one-inch pieces and call it a day. I also feel that scraping the seeds out of the drier Grade B beans would be pretty difficult and that between that and the difficulty of getting the seeds into the neck of the bottles, some of the seeds would be wasted. Go with what seems best to you.
Whether you choose to scrape or just chop the beans, prepare each portion individually and place the results in the container before moving on to the next pile (trust me, this will prevent confusion/mingling of portions).
When you're finished with that, you're ready to add the alcohol. If you need to dilute it, do so now per the instructions above.
Then pour the alcohol into your containers, filling to a bit below the neck. This is where the funnel or syringe/tube comes in handy, though if you have a steady hand and sufficient patience you can probably use a glass measuring cup to pour the alcohol into the bottles without too much spillage.
Now cap the bottles tightly and put them in a cool, dark place (the back of a cabinet is ideal). Shake them once daily for a month. (Note: Not the end of the world if you forget to shake them every day.) At the end of a month, you should have usable extract. It's recommended that you let it age a bit longer, up to two or three months.
After two to three months, you can filter the extract into new bottles (and then wash and reuse the ones that were holding it). This is an optional step, and one that we plan to skip (because of the aforementioned laziness). The solids (mostly seeds, as the pod/skin parts should be too big to come out without some coaxing) will generally stay at the bottom of the bottle unless shaken. If you're giving them as gifts, you may want to strain or put a note on the label warning that bits of bean might fall out as the bottle gets close to empty.
That's it! If you have leftover beans, you can use them to make vanilla sugar, or toss some in with coffee beans or ground coffee for a little pop of vanilla flavor.
* I'm sure you could find this equipment online. When our newborn daughter was released from the NICU to our hospital room (she had to be in the NICU for the first 36 hours after she was born, mostly for observation), one of the nurses invited us to take everything in the supply drawers from her NICU room, as they have to toss everything between patients. The large 2oz syringe we used was part of that haul, and for the tubing I just snipped a small piece off the end of one of the tubes from my breast pump. :)
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