Vanilla bean in secondary

[legropes]

G'day guys,

I'm thinking about brewing a vanilla stout with some coconut in it. I think it would work. Has any of you experimented with vanilla beans in the secondary? How many pods should I use in a 5 gallon batch and for how long? I'm after a hint of vanilla but not too full on. Cheers

 

[GFHomebrew]

Vanilla cream ale 4 vanilla pods I used in this soaked in a little vodka for 5 days ish and threw this into brew after primary fermentation. Vanilla came out beautiful.

 

[OkanaganMike]

Vanilla cream ale 4 vanilla pods I used in this soaked in a little vodka for 5 days ish and threw this into brew after primary fermentation. Vanilla came out beautiful.

4 whole pods seems like a lot. I like vanilla but a bit sensitive to it so always worried about overdoing it. Admittedly, I've never put it in beer but am considering a winter brew using some. With 4 pods was it overly vanilla"y" like would dominate all other flavors?

 

[GFHomebrew]

I used this in cream ale in a porter I'd think it'd just peek its vanillary head out amongst all that malt flavour

 

[GFHomebrew]

I'm gunna go a good quality bottle of store bought extract straight to secondary when doing this next time I added extract to last few minutes of boil but I think it was hardly noticeable in the boil? Just my 2c

 

[Dana Pellerin]

Vanilla cream ale 4 vanilla pods I used in this soaked in a little vodka for 5 days ish and threw this into brew after primary fermentation. Vanilla came out beautiful.

What's the purpose of the vodka?

 

[GFHomebrew]

What's the purpose of the vodka?

Extracting flavour

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

its also for sterilizing

 

[legropes]

Vanilla cream ale 4 vanilla pods I used in this soaked in a little vodka for 5 days ish and threw this into brew after primary fermentation. Vanilla came out beautiful.

So obviously you kept it in your primary fermenter. Did you split the vanilla bean open to extract the flavour inside or you just kept it as it?

 

[jmcnamara]

So obviously you kept it in your primary fermenter. Did you split the vanilla bean open to extract the flavour inside or you just kept it as it?

Absolutely. you split it lengthwise and then scrap it a little bit with your knife. dump the whole mess, pod and all, into the vodka

 

[GFHomebrew]

Yea as jmcnamara said yet I think I'll pay more attention to splitting them next time as I think from memory I just cut em up will probably get more vanilla that way. I've still got about 50 ml sitting in a cup on shelf with glad wrap over it. It smells Devine in my opinion you can get enough vanilla.

I've never brewed a porter so can't comment with this style but I'm sure anything chocolate or vanillary would put a smile on ya dile .

 

[Nosybear]

There's never a good reason to boil a vanilla extract or tincture, all you're doing is driving off flavor by doing so. Add it to taste at bottling/kegging.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Too true you live and learn Nosey ​