The Vanilla bean god is smiling on me....

[osodecanela]

So for the past couple of years I have been making my own vanilla.

That's right. Vanilla.

No, I'm not growing the beans. Orchids will grow here in Sonoma County, but not that type. Maybe it would grow in a hot house, but I don't own a greenhouse, let alone a heated one.

One of the local groceries had an insanely good deal on packaged vanilla beans and I had purchased a 1/4 lb initially and then a second a few months later. I used up the first bag a while back and broke into the second last month to start steeping vanilla for next year. The scent on the stuff that's steeped at least a year is insanely good; it makes a great extract. (The local Bottle Barn sells grain neutral alcohol that's 153 proof in litres rather than fifths, plus it's 3/4 the price of Everclear and a 1/4 more by volume; you wouldn't want to drink the stuff, but it works perfectly for making vanilla or other extracts.)

I went into the grocery a few weeks back to get another bag of vanilla, only to find the shelf bare. Went back again today and this time inquired if they would be getting any more. I was told no, they needed to cut back on the stuff they ordered from the particular company. I decided to call the company directly.

It seems that the wild grown beans they had been importing were coming from Papua, New Guinea, where the prices had skyrocketed and the quality had dropped. The company has stopped getting them and has switched to wild grown bourbon vanilla beans from Madagascar, a fine bean, but significantly higher in price than what they had been carrying. After seeing what I can get locally, where it'll cost me $2.50-3.00 per bean, if I can even find whole beans, the price the company was quoting me was good. I decided to go ahead and order 4 two oz bags. After finalizing my purchase, the woman from the company said she'd go look if there were any of the old Papuan beans in the store room, when she had a moment. I told her to get back to me if she found any.

That was an hour ago.

My phone just rang. She found a pound of beans left over. To clear them out, she gave me them at wholesale. Just paid $108 for them, plus $6 to ship. This should bring the price down to well under a buck a bean, perhaps as low as $0.65 each.

Now all I need is to find a better price on the grain neutral alcohol and I'm set.

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I've found good beans on the net. I've used vodka and rum for the base.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

Good deal.

[pheats64.livejournal.com]

I love making my own vanilla extract. I have some beans steeping in bourbon. They have been steeping for 5 years. I am not sure why I have been letting it go this long. The last batch I made I removed the pods, let them air dry and then pulverized them in the mini-cuisinart then added it to granulated sugar. Yeah, sometime beans can be expensive but if you are frugal enough you can find many ways to "re-use" the pods.