Planning ahead for this summer.

[rmd]

So, every baitcon season for the past few years, I've thought "Wouldn't it be great to do a 'tasting flight' kind of thing with a bunch of vanilla ice cream to compare various types of vanilla extract!" At which point I realize that I should've thought of that half a year ago so I could take some vanilla and make vanilla extracts from a couple of different types of vanilla beans.

This past year at baitcon, I was smart, and made a note in my calendar for the following Dec/Jan to start looking at making vanilla extracts. And so now I've ordered some small bottles and several varieties of vanilla beans. I should have enough to make a bunch of different batches of about 4 ounces each.

I figure that, at baitcon, I can make several gallons of vanilla ice cream mix (without the vanilla), and split it up into small batches and add the vanilla, each with a different extract. I'll be tempted to include a batch made with artificial vanilla extract, since cook's illustrated claims it's indistinguishable from the real thing and many people (me included) think this is a crazy result. And what do we do with crazy experimental results? WE TRY TO REPLICATE THEM.

I've discovered some interesting stuff I didn't know while researching this. Most notably, you *don't* want to use everclear for your extract. I read on the internet that "The results showed that there was approximately a 10% higher yield from the extraction process at 47.5% ethanol than at 95% ethanol. This suggests that vanillin is more soluble in solution at 47.5% ethanol than at 95%". However, you do want the booze to be at least 70 proof. The FDA specs for vanilla say that there should be at least 13.35oz of vanilla beans per gallon, and that the liquid should be at least 35% alcohol by volume.


So, now I just wait for all the parts to arrive and get myself a funnel and a knife.