Why You Shouldn’t Make Vanilla Extract Yourself
It is a good idea to submerge the cleaned and used vanilla bean in an aliquot of alcohol. (These beans are expensive, and you might as well get the last bit of flavor.) However, buying whole expensive pods to make your own extract is not a good idea. Simply put: you don’t have access to the equipment or technology required to make a fully realized, deeply flavored and complex bottle of vanilla extract in your home kitchen.
Like me, you’ve probably seen a few trendy chefs shove a bunch of vanilla beans into a large jar of bourbon or vodka and brag about their “homemade vanilla extract”, but the truth is, they’re wasting their time and money. … Vanilla extraction requires over 400 aromatics, and while many are ethanol soluble, many are water soluble, and many are not available with simple benchtop extraction performed at room temperature and pressure.
As Stella Parks of Serious Eats explains in her article on the topic (which you should read in full), the process for making vanilla extract varies from company to company, but it is always more difficult than tossing vanilla beans in alcohol and giving it a day:
Cold extraction typically involves processing vanilla with varying amounts and percentages of ethanol in constant circulation for weeks or months, with each round aiming to extract a different range of vanilla compounds with over 400+. By varying the percentage of ethanol with each wash, a new flavor range can be extracted. Eventually, these separate washes are blended together to create a finished vanilla. Generally speaking, the cold extracts have a more fruity and floral character, sometimes with a touch of rum.
Hot or pressure extractions can include all of this and more, as vanilla beans and ethanol can be stored at different temperatures and pressures, each also suitable for extracting a different range of aromatics that will later be blended into a single product. Some manufacturers may use percolation to extract another row of vanilla compounds. This type of vanilla has a darker character with hints of caramel, dried fruit, or even oak.
That’s all to say that adding beans to bourbon will result in a lovely vanilla-flavored bourbon, but you’re missing out on the full, layered, and complex set of bean-flavored ingredients. So buy a real, properly extracted extract ( Stella has a recommendation ) and save your beans for those times when you want to add seeds to your baked goods, then toss the empty pod into some fernet or better yet try one of the hot Stella’s products. infusions . You may not be able to control the extraction pressure, but you can control the temperature.