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vodka being poured into a jar of vanilla beans
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4.34 from 9 votes

Sous Vide Vanilla Extract

Make your own vanilla extract at home; it's cheaper and much better than store bought! Sous vide vanilla extract is ready to use months before a traditional homemade extract.
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time4 days
Total Time4 days 5 minutes
Course: Food Gift
Cuisine: Sous Vide
Keyword: home made vanilla extract, sous vide vanilla extract, vanilla extract
Servings: 96 teaspoons
Calories: 13kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 oz vanilla beans whole beans
  • 2 cups vodka or another alcohol of choice; rum and bourbon are common substitutes

Instructions

  • Preheat your steam oven (or a sous vide circulator in water bath) to 135°F/57°C. If you're using a steam oven, use the sous vide setting if your oven has one, or the steam setting if not.
  • Put the vanilla beans and vodka into a wide mouth or mason jar and close the lid to fingertip tightness (screw the lid on to the point where you've tightened it with your fingers, but don't twist it on as hard as possible, or you run the risk of the glass cracking during the heating and cooling process).
    2 oz vanilla beans, 2 cups vodka
  • Put the jar into your steam oven or water bath and set the timer for 96 hours/4 days. Yes, that's a long time! If you're using an unplumbed (water tank) steam oven, you will need to periodically fill up the water tank during this time, probably about twice a day.
  • At the end of the cooking time, cool the vanilla extract to room temperature and store in a dark place in the pantry.
  • The extract is ready to use when it's a dark, deep brown color and the alcohol smell has mellowed, anywhere from 1-3 months. If you want to do a taste test, put a couple of drops of extract into a tablespoon of milk. If it's ready to use you'll get a lovely deep vanilla taste without an alcohol 'burn' on your palate.

Notes

  1. The finished vanilla will keep indefinitely if you store it somewhere cool, dark and dry. Leave the beans in the extract as it preserves them; you can take a bean out and squeeze out the caviar if you need it for a recipe.
  2. When your vanilla is used up, either cover the beans with new alcohol (it won't make a strong extract but you'll have a lovely infused vodka and long term storage for the beans), or dry them out in a warm place and grind them into vanilla powder. No vanilla goes to waste!

Nutrition

Calories: 13kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1mg | Potassium: 1mg | Iron: 1mg