So, about that vanilla experiment. I got a package of 8 different kinds of beans (different geographic sources, etc), and pulled a bunch of beans from each group. For each kind, I scraped out the beany pulpy goodness and added a bit of chopped up bean husk and put each in a separate bottle, labelled A through H. It ended up being 8 beans from each batch, with around 6g of bean meat and 4-5g of bean husk in each bottle. Then I filled the bottles with vodka (smirnoff, 40% alcohol, which is over the minimum of 35% alcohol required by the FDA. I gather that lower than that you just get vanilla flavored booze rather than a proper extract.)
( pics behind the cut )
I put the bottles in a box - partly so they'd be dark, partly so I would only have one thing to remember to shake up - and sealed it up. So now, we wait. Occasionally shaking.