Vanilla Extract

Not too long ago, my friend Hannah and I went halvsies on an order of vanilla beans. These beans cost about $5 a piece if purchased at a local supermarket. However, we got ours for under $1 per bean through beanilla.com.  You can do all kinds of things with fresh vanilla beans, but my main purpose was to use them for vanilla extract. There are different recipes for making extract, but I went with 6 beans per 1 cup of vodka. I’ve decided to harvest the extract from the beans every 2 months until the beans aren’t producing anymore. I’ve read they can last for years. When you harvest the extract, you take 80% and leave 20% in the jar. Then, you fill up the jar with fresh vodka and start over, keeping the jar in a dark place and shaking it periodically so that the vanilla infuses evenly. I was going to scrape the “caviar” out of each bean into the extract to add flavor. However when I realized how tedious the process was becoming, I just slit each bean and cut them up into thirds so they would fit into 8 oz mason jars. (I wish I would have seen this video earlier: Click HERE) In my original plans, I was going to give the mason jars as gifts along with a small bottle for the extract. (A gift that would keep giving...) But, I realized that my recipients probably wouldn’t go buy more vodka to start a new batch once it was harvested. Not because they are lazy, but because there is no way my grandmother is going to a liquor store to buy vodka. Then, the vanilla beans would be wasted. So, I’m going to keep the beans myself and just give away the extract. I’m about to repurpose a large mason jar so I can combine all of the small ones in one place and make life a little bit easier on myself. I love making things like this!