UJSSM - Substituting Vanilla Extract for Real Vanilla Beans?

[joeymac]

My previous aging has been done in Quart Jars:
~ 600mL UJSSM (tempered to 100-120 proof)
Jack Daniels #7 Smoking Oak Chips (fill chips to ~100ml Mason Jar line or 2.5oz weight)
half of a granny smith apple; skin on, sliced 1/8 inch thick
half of a honeycrisp apple; skin on, sliced 1/8 inch thick
1/2 TBSP Maple Syrup
1 inch segment of Madagascar Vanilla Bean, split lengthwise with razor blade
Leave on Oak Chips 3 weeks. Filter. Bottle. Let Age.


As it turns out, madagascar vanilla bean has become very hard to find. Impossible locally and priced absurdly online. I do have some McCormick organic non-GMO pure madagascar vanilla extract (ingredients: vanilla bean, alcohol, water). I'm guessing it should be pretty decent stuff. How much of my vanilla bean extract should I use to replicate the vanilla profile of my 1" split vanilla bean?

[kiwi Bruce]

Take a 1" split been and soak it in an oz of white dog for two weeks...then take on oz of white dog and add your extract, one drop at a time until you get a taste that's close and use that drop count...the good thing with a liquid extract is, if you feel that the vanilla taste is low in your main batch it's easy to adjust.

[joeymac]

But I don't have any vanilla bean or I'd just put THAT in the aging jars... that's the problem!

So I put 650ml of white dog @ 55% in the quart jars with the regular amount of oak chips, maple, apples, and then added just a half-TBSP of vanilla extract.

I noticed I was able to take a wider cut of spirit this time through, too. It was a 50/50 cracked corn & steel cut oats UJSSM instead of just cracked corn in the UJSSM and the oats/corn was allowed to rest much longer than I've ever rested a corn-only UJSSM before sampling the cuts. Usually, if I take 20 jars of corn UJSSM spirit off the still I can keep maybe the middle 6 jars; or about the middle 30% of the run made the cut. This time I was able to keep the middle 8 out of 19 jars; or middle 42%. Heck, I almost kept another jar on each side of the cut but decided not to get greedy.