Real vanilla extract can be very expensive, and making it yourself usually takes several weeks. But why buy extract when you can have deep, dark, and delicious vanilla extract in just 4 hours at a fraction of the cost of store-bought? Read on to learn a couple easy methods for making vanilla bean extract that’s ready to use the same day!
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Jump To:
- Prefer to Watch Instead of Read?
- Why Make Your Own Vanilla Extract?
- Printable Vanilla Extract Gift Labels
- What is Vanilla?
- Pro Tips for the Best Vanilla Extract
- How Do You Make Vanilla Extract Quickly?
- Choosing Vanilla Beans for Extract
- How Many Vanilla Beans Should I Use?
- Choosing Alcohol for Vanilla Extract
- What Kind of Jar To Use for Vanilla Extract
- FAQs
- 4-Hour Vanilla Extract
Prefer to Watch Instead of Read?
Why Make Your Own Vanilla Extract?
- It’s much less expensive than buying good store-bought pure vanilla extract. Your mileage may vary, but making the vanilla extract for this post cost me about one-third of the same amount of Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract.
- You can choose exactly what kind of vanilla extract you want. You control how strong it is, what kind of alcohol to use, and what kind of vanilla beans you use.
- It makes a really lovely gift! If you have any friends or family who love baking, a homemade bottle of vanilla is both thoughtful and memorable. If you’re making vanilla as a gift, don’t forget to grab my free printable labels below!
Printable Vanilla Extract Gift Labels
Homemade vanilla extract is a wonderful gift for anyone who loves to bake. To make it extra-special, I made some labels you can use to personalize your bottles or jars. Print them on full-sheet label paper to stick them directly to your jars or bottles, or print them on cardstock and tie them on.
Get Your FREE Labels
Subscribe to my newsletter below and I’ll send you a PDF to print and label your homemade vanilla. I send recipes and baking tips to your inbox, but if you ever decide it’s not for you, you can unsubscribe any time!
What is Vanilla?
I truly don’t understand where the saying “plain vanilla” comes from. Real vanilla is such a deep, enchanting, an complex flavour that it couldn’t be further from the truth. Vanilla beans are the fruit of the vanilla orchid, a tropical climbing vine with delicate, fragrant flowers. After hand pollinating, the green pods take months to mature before going through a painstaking curing process involving blanching, sweating, drying, and aging that transforms them into the dark, magical and aromatic vanilla beans we know and love.
What makes them so unique is their almost unimaginably complex chemistry. They have hundreds of flavour compounds that contribute floral, smoky, and caramel notes. Vanillin is the most prominent and recognizable, but it’s the intricate depth and complexity that makes real vanilla so rich, warm, and unforgettable. Artificial vanilla extract just doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing!
Pro Tips for the Best Vanilla Extract
- Use grade B vanilla beans. They pack a ton of flavour and are usually much less expensive than Grade A beans.
- Choose the right alcohol. Vodka has a neutral taste so you get an extract with a clean vanilla flavour. Rum or bourbon work well too, and will add their own flavours to the extract. Minimum 35% ABV (70 proof).
- Gentle heat is the key to quickly extracting vanilla into alcohol. The sweet spot is 140˚F (60˚C). That’s warm enough to speed up the process, without losing any aromatic compounds from the vanilla.
- Split the beans to expose the seeds inside the pod. The seeds hold the most flavour! There’s no need to scrape the seeds into the bottle, unless you want a speckled extract.
- Do not seal the jar or bottle tightly before putting it in the Instant Pot, slow cooker, or sous vide. The heat can make pressure build up in the jar or bottle, risking an explosion. Just cover the top loosely with aluminum foil to prevent any water or steam from dripping in. Seal the jar tightly after the extract has cooled back down to room temperature.
How Do You Make Vanilla Extract Quickly?
The secret is using gentle heat! Heat makes the molecules in the alcohol move around faster, so they bump into and dissolve the flavour molecules in the vanilla beans more often. There’s a limit though, too hot and you’ll evaporate the alcohol off and lose a lot of the aromatic compounds in the vanilla beans. The sweet spot is 140˚F (60˚C) for four hours.
The easiest way to keep something at a precise temperature for a certain amount of time is by using a sous vide machine. They’re relatively inexpensive, and useful for a lot of kitchen tasks! You can also use the Keep Warm function on an Instant Pot or slow cooker. That keeps things at least at 140˚F (60˚C) but some models go warmer than that. It’s not as accurate as sous vide, but also works well!
Choosing Vanilla Beans for Extract
You don’t have to use fancy grade A beans to make extract. Less expensive grade B vanilla (sometimes called extract-grade) works perfectly well. Grade B beans pack tons of flavour, and you can get inexpensive bulk bags of grade b vanilla beans online. They’re perfect for making extract without breaking the bank! There are lots of different varieties of vanilla beans that will each bring a unique flavour profile to your extract:
Madagascar (AKA Bourbon) vanilla has a rich, creamy, sweet, and full-bodied flavour. It’s the “classic” vanilla flavour most people are familiar with. It makes a great all-purpose extract that will work well in any recipe.
Tahitian vanilla is floral, fruity, and perfumed, with subtle cherry or plum notes. It adds an aromatic and exotic note to custards, ice cream, or light desserts.
Mexican vanilla is smooth, sweet, and slightly spicy with chocolate or clove undertones. It’s great for adding depth to chocolate, coffee, or spiced desserts, or for baking in general.
Indonesian vanilla is smoky and bold, and makes a robust extract.
Ugandan vanilla is creamy with notes of chocolate, and makes a decadent extract.
How Many Vanilla Beans Should I Use?
It’s up to you how strong you make your vanilla extract, but it can be helpful to have some guidelines as a starting point! Vanilla extract typically comes in one of two strengths: single-fold (regular vanilla) or double-fold (premium vanilla). Single-fold vanilla extract uses at least 10 grams of vanilla beans for every 100 mL of alcohol, while double-fold vanilla extract uses at least 20 grams of vanilla beans for every 100 mL of alcohol. Grade A beans weigh about 5 grams on average, and grade B (or extract-grade) beans weigh about 3 grams each on average.
You could use a scale to weigh out your vanilla beans if you want to be super accurate. But honestly, estimating how many beans you need is good enough! Use the table below based on how much alcohol you need to fill your bottle or jar and whether you’re using Grade A or B beans. I recommend using at least as many beans as are listed in the Single-Fold extract table, otherwise your extract may not be strong enough to be useful in baking.
How Many Vanilla Beans to Use for Single-Fold Extract
| Amount of Alcohol | # of Grade A Beans | # of Grade B Beans |
|---|---|---|
| 50 mL | 1 | 2 |
| 100 mL | 2 | 3–4 |
| 150 mL | 3 | 5 |
| 200 mL | 4 | 6–7* |
| 250 mL | 5 | 8–9 |
| 300 mL | 6 | 10 |
| 350 mL | 7 | 11–12 |
| 400 mL | 8 | 13–14 |
| 450 mL | 9 | 15 |
| 500 mL | 10 | 16–17 |
How Many Vanilla Beans to Use for Double-Fold Vanilla
| Amount of Alcohol | # of Grade A Beans | # of Grade B Beans |
|---|---|---|
| 50 mL | 2 | 3–4 |
| 100 mL | 4 | 6–7* |
| 150 mL | 6 | 10 |
| 200 mL | 8 | 13–14 |
| 250 mL | 10 | 16–17 |
| 300 mL | 12 | 20 |
| 350 mL | 14 | 23–24 |
| 400 mL | 16 | 26–27 |
| 450 mL | 18 | 30 |
| 500 mL | 20 | 33–34 |
*My sincere apologies if your Gen Alpha kid sees this table, and won’t stop repeating that meme.
Choosing Alcohol for Vanilla Extract
A neutral-tasting alcohol makes for the cleanest extract that allows for all of the complex flavours of vanilla to shine through. An inexpensive vodka is perfect—as long as it’s good enough to drink, it’s good enough to use for extract. Rum and bourbon also make delicious extracts, but they will impart their own flavours so you won’t have as clean or pure of a vanilla extract in the end. Whatever alcohol you choose, make sure it’s at least 35% ABV (alcohol by volume) or 70 proof so it’s strong enough to pull all of the flavour compounds out of the vanilla beans.
What Kind of Jar To Use for Vanilla Extract
Any food-safe glass jar will work for vanilla extract. Since this technique uses heat to make the extract faster, you also need to make sure your container is safe for at least 140˚F (60˚C).
FAQs
There’s no need. After splitting the beans to expose the seeds, the alcohol will extract all of the flavour out of them. But if you prefer a speckled vanilla extract there’s no harm in doing so!
After the four hours in the sous vide or Instant Pot is done, I recommend leaving the beans in the bottle. The flavour of the extract will keep deepening over time. Once your extract is used up, you can take the beans out of the bottle and let them dry out thoroughly. Then toss them into a container of sugar to give it a subtle vanilla flavour.
It lasts indefinitely if stored correctly, in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dark place like a pantry.
Homemade vanilla extract should be stored in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dark place. A pantry or cupboard is perfect.
4-Hour Vanilla Extract
Ingredients
Method
- Split the vanilla beans in half lengthwise. I like to leave the skinny curved end uncut, so it's easier to handle the beans.
- Place the beans into the bottle or jar, and cover with the alcohol leaving a little space at the top. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Do not seal the jar tightly, or pressure could build up while heating, risking an explosion.
- Fill a pot with enough water to come about halfway up the bottle or jar, and also be between the minimum and maximum markings on the sous vide.
- Attach the sous vide machine to the pot according to the manufacturer's instructions, and set it to 140˚F (60˚C) for 4 hours. You can put the bottle or jar in the pot while the sous vide preheats, there's no need to wait for it to come up to temperature.
- Fill the Instant Pot or slow cooker with enough water to come about halfway up the vanilla jar or bottle. Choose its keep warm function. You can put the lid on if it fits to help keep the heat in. If not, you can drape a clean kitchen towel on top. Set a timer for 4 hours.
- After the 4 hours are up, remove the bottle or jar from the pot and let it come back down to room temperature. Seal it tightly and store in a cool dark place. The vanilla extract is ready to use right away
Karen says
Do the vanilla bean seeds need to be scraped out into alcohol? Donyou leave beans in until you use all extract?
Joanna Rankin says
Nope, no need to scrape the seeds out! You can scrape them if you want to (will give you a speckled extract, and some of the seeds will end up in your bake which isn’t a bad thing). It’s just a personal preference if you want the seeds floating around in the extract or not. And I do like to leave the beans in the alcohol until it’s used out, as the extract will continue to deepen in flavour over time. When the extract is all used up you can dry the beans out thoroughly on a paper towel and then toss them in a container of granulated sugar to add some vanilla flavour to the sugar.