Has anyone used this product? My go-to vanilla beans are considerably more expensive than last time I made vanilla-infused beer, so I've been looking at alternatives. Ingredient breakdown for an on-line jar of this is: - Vanilla bean extractives in water - Alcohol (12-14%) - Vanilla bean seeds (6%) - Sugar (5%) - Carrageenan E407 (0.5-1%) I'm assuming the alcohol is something neutral - I normally soak vanilla beans in vodka prior to adding to my beer, so I think that would be similar. Is carrageenan the same/similar to Irish Moss? Thanks-
Carrageenan = Irish Moss. Never used paste but any vanilla flavoring (especially in alcohol) doesn’t come across as vanilla to me. It always tastes/smells like extract. You can’t go wrong with beans and stored air tight they’ll last a year. Plus then you gotta figure out the right amount with the paste.
Cuttlefish proved cost prohibitive as well. I found an alternate, better priced source on beans so I played it safe and ordered some. I may still give the paste a try at some point in pastry or ice cream. Thanks-
An alternative is to use both. I brewed a vanilla porter that turned out well. Beans are expensive and if you get a good extract it’s basically the same as making a tincture. By using both you can use half the beans and less extraxt so it doesn’t taste like extraxt and save some $$. The initial cost might be more but then you can use the extract for the next batch. The beer I made everyone loved and nobody thought it tasted like extraxt.
Sorry need to call this one out...I don't get this statement. I mean you're extracting the same vanilla oils from bean whether your adding it to strong ethanol (vodka) or to weaker ethanol (beer). I've never heard of ethanol having a chemical reaction with the vanilla essential oils. Are you implying that people should be adding the chopped vanilla bean direct to their French toast and it will provide a different taste experience? Edit...or are you saying imitation vanilla extract here?
Alright! I got called out. I made it! We all have different taste buds. Me personally, I can taste the difference between an alcohol extract or tincture vs. a cold or hot infusion. Especially an extract with 35% alcohol. The nice thing about vanilla beans is they lend themselves to infusion nicely. I find you get more aroma and a truer taste that way ... such as you would get by dropping beans/seeds into the fermenter. There's no real extraction going on in there. It's a subtle difference to some palates but a noticeable one to others. I'm in the latter. The OP was very happy with his previous batch but was considering switching to an extract due to cost. I'm not against experimenting (love it) but I also subscribe to the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mantra so I'm all in on the real thing.
