Finally...
Today I finally got to try the vanilla that I planted in the ground almost 6 years ago. Even though the bottle date says otherwise, this vanilla was actually pollinated almost 3 years ago.
It takes almost 9 months after pollinating for a vanilla bean (technically a pod) to be mature enough to harvest. After harvesting, it takes almost another 6-9 months to ferment and then fully cure (depending on how traditional you want to be with the cure). After that, it takes an additional 9 months to a year of soaking in vodka to get a concentration high enough to be considered vanilla.
This being my first attempt at curing (or at least 2 years ago it was), I know I could have cured them longer and gotten more potency. We have a mother that this was decanted off off where we put 20 beans into 2 liters of vodka.
My partner and I did a testing today and I have to say it was magical. We compared it with the Costco brand Madagascar vanilla and it completely blew it away in terms of flavor... if the Costco vanilla was more concentrated (probably I didn't cure my beans fully).
It was much.. brighter and much more floral than the Costco vanilla. Also, and it wasn't until we went back and forth between the Costco and our vanilla to compare a few times, but because we now had this much higher quality vanilla to compare to, we actually started tasting off notes in the Costco vanilla. Which was interesting because we have noticed that before,but thought it was something else. After tasting ours, and comparing it, we could clearly taste a 'moldy' or forest floor flavor in the Costco that ours didn't have any hint of.
So just posting because this is an accomplishment almost 6+ years in the making. The number of beans harvested has gone up every year and this year we probably had 20x the number of flowers of previous years because our vines are finally becoming fully mature. We're hoping to have enough to actually sell some (just cured beans) starting maybe holiday season this year.
Thank you for engaging with this post.
Td
(! necessary gratuitous vanilla flower and vine shots)
~~what did you cure it in~~? edit i can read closer duh we have some in some local vodka (which you can get in the brewery canned as a lemon drop and fuck yes) and i had to remind my wife (okay it was my me guilty as charged) that it was cooking vodka, not drinking vodka.
fuck now i want more of that vanilla. maybe it's just the vodka the lemon drops are really good too. unfortunately they just got bought out by a not local place so i'm not 100% sure if they are still a good place anymore, but i've been checking in and if they are still a good place to work i kind of want to sent you a few liters
edit: i turned soil (added some master start and a bag of $10 planter mix to some raised beds) and planted basils and dill yesterday. the basils will likely be dead by week's end, either by overeating or mint takeover. i'm a really bad gardener but i have a textbook written by a friend in the... 90s probably? maybe 70s. i don't know. if i follow the textbook i get to blame my friend when my garden catches fire for no reason.