Time for vanilla beans in secondary

[andreiz]

I'm planning to brew a cocoa vanilla oatmeal stout and will use real vanilla beans in the secondary (the usual cut open, scrape out the insides, chop up and soak in alcohol for a while procedure). I've done this once before and left the beer on vanilla beans in the secondary for 1 week and the flavor/aroma was pretty noticeable. This time I have to travel for about 17-18 days, and I wonder if that will be too much vanilla. How long do you guys usually leave beer on the beans this way for?

 

[Oldsock]

Take samples, when the vanilla character is right, take the beans out of the beer or take the beer off the beans. 2 weeks is about what I usually do, but it really depends on your beer, your beans, and your taste preference.

 

[andreiz]

Yes, I'd like to take samples and keep an eye on it, but as I said, I'll be traveling, so the earliest I could check would be just over 2 weeks after transferring to secondary..

 

[weirdboy]

About a year ago I made a coconut vanilla porter and racked the beer onto vanilla beans (and toasted coconut) for about a week. At bottling time, the vanilla flavor and aroma was great and well-balanced with the coconut. By the time the bottles had finished conditioning a few weeks later, the vanilla presence was almost gone and it was all coconut.

I am not sure exactly what happened with that beer, but it makes me think I have no idea how I'm ever going to be able to produce a balanced vanilla flavor.

 

[Oldsock]

Yes, I'd like to take samples and keep an eye on it, but as I said, I'll be traveling, so the earliest I could check would be just over 2 weeks after transferring to secondary..

Why not just wait until you come back to add the beans? Without more details it is hard to give you more specific advice.