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This month I felt that a little time could be spent talking about Vanilla in beer. Ahh the aroma of vanilla.. it is so appealing to me. When you add it to beer what a complex flavor and aroma you create in your brew. Stouts, Porters and Holiday beers to name a few styles that can be enhanced with a little bit of vanilla. Vanilla comes in several different forms that can be used in beer.
The two main are the vanilla beans and extract; sort of reminds you of our malt in that respect. You have the whole grain or the extract that someone else has boiled down for you. In a five gallon brew, I typically will use one half of a bean which provides a noticeable flavor to the beer. The bean is split lengthwise and added to the boil. I have heard of also adding some to the secondary fermentor to allow the alcohol in the beer to actually pull the flavor out of the bean. The normal means of adding it to the fermentor is to place the bean in a pot and boil it for five minutes and then allow it to seep for another ten minutes. Then you add this mixture to the secondary. The use of the vanilla extract gives you another option in that it allows you to taste the beer prior to bottling and if the flavor is not strong enough, then you can add some extract. If you are using just the extract, then about 1.5 ounces is all that you would need for a five gallon batch.
Where does this precious spice that has been called the greatest spice the western hemisphere has given the world come from? Look around. This spice shows up everywhere; in ice cream flavoring, milkshakes and many baked goods. The actual bean comes from a vine that is native to the rain forests of southeastern Mexico, Central America and the northern part of South America. It is known to grow to 80 feet or higher in its natural environment where it clings to the great trees in the forest. This gives all brewers another good reason to save the rain forests; especially the ones where our treasured Vanilla beans grow. The vines produce a slender green fleshy pod. I was surprised to learn that the beans have no flavor when picked but must undergo a fermentation process. During this process, the beans develop the flavor that we expect. In the commercial enterprise today, the beans mature on the vine for four to nine months and are then picked and put into the drying process. The traditional process of curing the beans is to spread the green pods in the sun for several hours until they are hot. They are then covered with a blanket and allowed to sweat overnight. This process is continued for several days until the beans are the typical brown color that we see when we buy then in a store. During this processing, an enzyme activity occurs to the bean that creates the taste and aroma that we desire. The richer beans sometimes actually have a sort of white powder form on the outside of the bean. This is the crystallized form of the compound known as vanillin coming through the bean. Although modern methods have shortened the processing period, it is still highly labor intensive.
The English were among the first to recognized the importance of vanilla and attempted for many years to grow it in their various colonies. But it was not until the 1840's that they were successful in this endeavor. Finally, the process has been perfected which has led to Madagascar becoming the world's leading producer of the spice. Like all good things in life, the expensive good bean has lead to many other sources being developed for imitation vanilla. These, of course are less expensive and not as complex as the real thing - sort of how the imitation beer is cheaper than the real craft brewed beer. The imitation vanilla is made from various sources such as pine tree sap, sugar, wood chips and coal tar. The many vanilla extracts made from the vanilla beans and either water or alcohol are quite good and contain the complex flavor compounds of the real bean. Another product that you may run across is Vanilla essence. It is made from a distillation process of the beans and is usually considered less desirable than the vanilla extract.
When using this spice, remember that it is always easy to add a little more to the brew, but if you overdo it, you can not just take a little out. Good luck in your brewing experiments with Vanilla...
