Vanilla

[Hairy]

I am planning on using vanilla beans for the first time and I am interested in how others have used it themselves. I like to keep things simple and was thinking of adding it to the primary fermenter after fermentation has finished. I haven't decided whether to soak them in some type of alcohol or toss them in fresh.

How have others used it and what were the results? How many beans did you use?

Thanks

Hairy

[karlos_1984]

I made a choc vanilla stout with vanilla beans. I sliced 2 beans and added them to a 15 min boil with the steeped water from choc malt and some LDM. After primary firmentation had finished I threw in 2 more spilt pods which had been soaked in vodka. Threw the lot in.

TBH, the vanilla taste faded pretty quick. I don't think I'd use this method again. Ask Christina on here. She mentioned using oak chips or something to get a more noticeable vanilla flavour.

[Beer Baron]

I sliced 2 pods and scraped the insides out and put them in vodka with the left over pods for a few days. I put the whole lot in my fermenter 7 days before bottling. 

I had ZERO vanilla taste. 

[Hairy]

Thanks guys. I have read a lot about people struggling to taste the vanilla or the flavor disappearing quickly.

Given the cost of vanilla beans I am considering scrapping it and going with a stock standard milk stout. Given it is my first perhaps I should do that anyway

I'm interested to hear other people's experiences though.

[rossm]

1 hour ago, Beer Baron said:

I sliced 2 pods and scraped the insides out and put them in vodka with the left over pods for a few days. I put the whole lot in my fermenter 7 days before bottling. 

I had ZERO vanilla taste. 

....did you take it out of vodka bottle....

[Beer Baron]

No. I just checked the sealed 700ml vodka bottle which contained the vanilla straight into the fermenter ha ha ha

[Worthog]

I had thought of a couple of drops of vanilla essence using an eye dropper in each bottle at bottling stage. Would this work?

Cheers?

[Hairy]

2 hours ago, Worthog said:

I had thought of a couple of drops of vanilla essence using an eye dropper in each bottle at bottling stage. Would this work?

Cheers?

I keg but do bottle around 5-6 beers from a batch. Perhaps I could add vanilla essence to a few of the bottles as an experiment but leave the rest of the batch as a standard milk stout.

[Beerlust]

I've used vanilla beans a number of times with a Porter I make.

I simply slice the beans lengthwise & bend outward to expose the innards. Add to the fermenter like you would a dry hop & leave for 7 days.

Remember, adding it as a dry hop also has you adding it to alcohol. 

My last blueberry/vanilla Porter was AWESOME!

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Hairy]

Lusty, how vanilla beans do you usually use?

[The Captain!!]

Hey Hairy,

I’d do as Lusty says using two pods per 23/25L batch

Captain

[Worthog]

13 hours ago, Beerlust said:

I've used vanilla beans a number of times with a Porter I make.

I simply slice the beans lengthwise & bend outward to expose the innards. Add to the fermenter like you would a dry hop & leave for 7 days.

Remember, adding it as a dry hop also has you adding it to alcohol. 

My last blueberry/vanilla Porter was AWESOME!

Cheers,

Lusty.

Are you saying like 'commando' style at cold crash? 

[ChristinaS1]

Hi Hairy. I have not used them in beer, but have in wine. Since yeast metabolize vanillin, don't add them pre-fermentation.

Vanilla beans are quite expensive. A lot of cider makers are switching to oak for this reason, and I am thinking of doing this myself. They say you can get quite a lot of vanillin from one ounce of medium toast oak cubes as well, if added post fermentation. Boil in a small amount of water for a couple of minutes, to kick start the flavour release. 

American oak has the most vanilla, but French is pretty good too. Leave for a week and then start tasting every couple of days; probably should not leave longer than two weeks. Once bottled the beer will need to age for a couple of months, to integrate the tannins. If you are making a stout, aging is not a bad thing. Cubes are preferred to chips.

Good luck with the brew.

Cheers.

Christina.

[Hairy]

Thanks Christina. The only drawback for me is that I am not a big fan of the oakey taste in beer.

The next question is sourcing fresh vanilla beans. I don't know how fresh the supermarket beans are. I will be brewing it this weekend so I will report back in a few weeks.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Interesting Christina. I still have the oak chips that I was gonna use in my red ale here, which I keep forgetting to use in it. I'm gonna put them in the next batch of it, I wonder how much vanilla flavor I'll get from them

[Beerlust]

17 hours ago, Hairy said:

Lusty, how vanilla beans do you usually use?

It's one of those subjective things as personal preferences come into play here.

I only use one in my Porter as I like the vanilla as a noticeable undertone, not a domineering flavour. And trust me it is noticeable. Just make sure you split it all the way along & open it right up before hurling into the FV. No need to remove the seeds.

If you want a more dominant vanilla taste, then use two.

5 hours ago, Worthog said:

Are you saying like 'commando' style at cold crash? 

I do 'commando' these as I have no intention of removing it before bottling/kegging. Unlike when I dry hop, 1-2 skinny vanilla beans aren't going to hold much in the way of liquid that they would require squeezing to extract that. 

BTW, I don't dry hop at cold crash, I dry hop at ambient temps. 

Cheers & good luck with the brew Hairy.

Lusty.

[Worthog]

16 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

.....BTW, I don't dry hop at cold crash, I dry hop at ambient temps. 

Lusty.

Yes, sorry my mistake, so do I and the chux squeeze is the last thing I do before cold crash. Thanks,

[Beerlust]

1 minute ago, Worthog said:

Yes, sorry my mistake, so do I and the chux squeeze is the last thing I do before cold crash. Thanks,

[Graculus]

On 5/21/2018 at 5:08 PM, Worthog said:

I had thought of a couple of drops of vanilla essence using an eye dropper in each bottle at bottling stage. Would this work?

Cheers?

I tried this. I don't think it was very successful.

I bulk primed 20 odd litres of a toucan. Then I syphoned off 3.5 litres into a demijohn and added 3.5ml Vanilla Essence.

Then did the same adding 7ml Vanilla Essence.

I don't think I could really tell that there was any vanilla in there to be honest. Or it could be my crap tastebuds.

I tried this after learning how much Vanilla Beans were.

Somebody did suggest that if I wanted to use pods I should search for "extract grade".

Apparently that is the cheaper option.

[Hoppy81]

I'm looking at doing a stout next and was thinking of using 2 vanilla beans. the more i read the more i'm confused on how to use them haha.

Do they need to be sanitised in vodka first before "dry hopping" with them?

Cheers,
Hoppy

[Hairy]

44 minutes ago, Hoppy81 said:

I'm looking at doing a stout next and was thinking of using 2 vanilla beans. the more i read the more i'm confused on how to use them haha.

Do they need to be sanitised in vodka first before "dry hopping" with them?

Cheers,
Hoppy

Some people just throw them in but most soak them in vodka or bourbon. I soaked mine in Scotch Whisky because it was what I had on hand.

I used two beans in my stout but I should have used three. In a big flavoursome stout it can easily get overshadowed. I didn't want an 'in your face' vanilla experience but it was probably a little too subtle. It also faded fairly quickly in the keg. I will be trying a bottled version on Friday night so it will be interesting to see how it held up.

[Hoppy81]

Thanks Hairy.

So you just soak them in alcohol in a jar and tip the entire contents of the jar in to the fermenter?

[Hairy]

8 minutes ago, Hoppy81 said:

Thanks Hairy.

So you just soak them in alcohol in a jar and tip the entire contents of the jar in to the fermenter?

Yes. Cut them open first and then soak them. You don't need a huge amount of alcohol, just so they are covered.

[Hoppy81]

Awesome, thanks mate.

[Fergy1987]

I'll be very interested to see how you go with the Vanilla Hoppy81 - I was keen to do the same with a Choc-Vanilla stout, but everything I read said the Vanilla never really came through much after a while, and for a $10 ingredient I'd want it to smack me in the face! Especially when you have to age the stout