Vanilla bean in secondary

I am going to brew a vanilla bean porter tomorrow, the recipe says to steep 2 vanilla beams in 170 degree water for twenty minutes. It does not say how much water, and do I add the entire contents? Or just the vanilla beans themselves after they steep? Any help would be appreciated.

It sounds to me like it's not a flavor issue or anything. More likely they're having you soak them at 170 to pasteurize the bean and kill off anything that might be on its surface.

When I use a bean in secondary, I just spray it down with starsan before I split and scrape it and then toss it in. I've never had any issues with infection.

I recently used a vanilla mix in the secondary. Mine was:
3 beans, cut, sliced
1 cup stoli vanilla
1/2 cup vanilla extract


I have mixed results. I think the beans are good enough alone!

JBubba said:

I recently used a vanilla mix in the secondary. Mine was:
3 beans, cut, sliced
1 cup stoli vanilla
1/2 cup vanilla extract

I have mixed results. I think the beans are good enough alone!

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Stoli vanilla, interesting!

I've used vanilla beans and soaked them I'm bourbon for my RIS in the secondary.
I split and scraped then of course first.

Thank you guys for the response, so essentially just drop the beans in? Not the liquid it steeps in? Thank you.

tomcamham said:

Thank you guys for the response, so essentially just drop the beans in? Not the liquid it steeps in? Thank you.

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Make sure you split the bean open and scrape out the innards before dropping it all in. Throwing a whole bean in without opening it up won't do anything for you. The goodies are in the middle.

tomcamham said:

Thank you guys for the response, so essentially just drop the beans in? Not the liquid it steeps in? Thank you.

Click to expand...

I dump it all in the secondary. The RIS's I made I wanted the vanilla and bourbon to come though. Taste the beer every week or so until it's where you want it, then bottle. Some like it after only a few days, some a week; mine was on the vanilla for about 2 months, and it's a very good amount of vanilla, but I also used 6 beans (some were not the freshest, thats why I did so much).

I split 3 beans and put them in 12 oz of vodka the day i brewed the porter. Then racked to secondary 2 weeks later and just dumped the vodka and beans in it.
So far this has been my wife's favorite keg.

JBubba said:

1/2 cup vanilla extract

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holy moley 1/2 cup!?!?!? that's a ton!!!

I usually use vodka to extract the vanilla flavor as alcohol works much better to extract the flavor than anything else. any alcohol will work but vodka is mostly flavorless. cut open bean, scrape out innards, then throw everything in a just enough alcohol to extract the flavor. certainly don't throw the beans in a whole liter of vodka!