 Hello friends, Heidi here from Rain Country Homestead. God is good all the time. And today I want to show you how to make vanilla extract. So let's get started. Alright, so before we get started on the vanilla extract, I want to show you a couple things that update. So if you go back and watch my How to Make Healthy Homestead Chocolate Video, I was trying to remember the name of the cacao butter I'd used before. And this is it here. And I'll try to remember to link it below. So Terasoul, raw cacao butter, and I found this on Amazon. In case I forget to put the link in there, you can go look this up. This one, though the other one I was using in that video, is good. And it's definitely just great for making chocolate. I actually prefer the taste and texture of this one a little bit better. And it's not very much more. It is a little bit more expensive but not by that much. So you might want to check this one out. I have this out because Mr. Rain's out of chocolate and I need to make him some more strawberry chocolate. So, I'm using the Honeyville Organic Freeze Dry Strawberry for that. I'm going to add some raisins in for sweetness. And then also, those of you who have been kind of getting into the meringuea thing, I did get my meringuea powder in the other day and I made myself my own meringuea capsules. I did just now do some in water. And the taste is okay. I can handle a lot of things. So for me, I'll probably keep doing it that way just to save on capsules. But I wouldn't find it entirely pleasing. And I think a lot of people would really not be able to handle it that way. So look for some gelatin capsules and again, I'll try to remember to link those below. But again, I find mine on Amazon, look for the non-GMO kind. And so, and you can see I have the turmeric capsules in here. And you'll, you'll what I've seen in my How to Make Your Own Homemade Erbosupplements video. Okay, so there's that. Now, there's several, there's actually several different ways to make vanilla extract. You can use a high-proof alcohol or you can use glycerin. Now, this particular bottle, this was my first time trying glycerin. It's a food grade glycerin. I'll show you that. So you can see this is the Nell Foods. There is a lesser expensive one you can buy because you can get it by the gallon. And I do have that too. I couldn't find that gallon jug though, unfortunately. I have it around here somewhere. Well, this one, this one I started that is, well, you can see the date. I started it at the end of July. And you can tell the color is still not very dark. Now, if this was vodka, like I'd normally make it, this would already be pretty dark. In fact, let me go get a bottle of the vodka one that's already dark. Right. So here's one. This is the one I just pulled out of the cabinet to use because I ran on my other one. I have several of these going at all times. And to me, this still isn't even very dark. I'm wondering if I'm just not putting enough vanilla bean in there. So I'm going to put a little more of the vanilla bean in this one. But really by now, this should be the same color. It doesn't take long for them to get that color. However, the taste, and even though this is not very strong vanilla-wise yet, I'm going to leave it for a while longer and see how it does. Glittering has a natural sweetness to it. And I like the flavor. This is giving to the vanilla much better. And the smell, I can definitely smell the vanilla in there. But I'll give this more time. Normally by now, if this was a high proof alcohol, this would be ready at this point. You know, two, three months, you shouldn't need more than that. But I always figure the longer the better anyway. So for this experiment, so you get to learn and get to watch me do another experiment. Woohoo! I'm going to try going half and half. And it's kind of a dual experiment. I'm going to try using the rum in this because by the smell of the rum, I don't drink as many of you probably know. I keep this stuff on hand for literally for medicinal purposes. And I thought this would make a really tasty, nice smooth vanilla. And you just smell it and you're just like, yeah, that smells like it's going to be better. And I'm going to do half and half. So I can still cut back on the alcohol, the amount of alcohol I'm using, but also get that little bit of sweetness and stuff of the glycerin. So I'm saving money that way as well. Now for another funnel, these days I'll actually have everything I need out here before I start these videos. So this isn't really that much bigger than the whole, but it is a little bit. So the first thing you want to do is you want to get your vanilla beans. And you see, I keep these vacuum sealed in a jar. These are organic vanilla beans. Okay. And I'm going to do, I'm going to do four whole beans. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to cut them. So I'm going to grab my little shears here. And at least cut them in half. In fact, it's better yet if you can cut them so they're getting more of the inside of the vanilla. And I meant to do this first. You can do this however you want. I've thrown them in like this before. Just cut them in half and tossed them in there. But the more of the inside of the vanilla, that's exposed to your alcohol or your glycerin and you should be able to get a stronger taste. Obviously I'm not doing it. This would be better with a knife, but since I grab scissors, I'm using scissors. I normally add those with a knife. So anyway, you're going to get those in there. It's a super, super simple process. The hardest part is the wait time. Because once you have this going, then it's going to take, it's going to take about two months to get a good vanilla extract. And it's going to depend on how high proof your alcohol is. Now the higher proof the alcohol, the sooner you'll have it ready. But you'll be able to know by the taste, the smell and all that. And as far as the alcohol, I try to, though I try to really avoid alcohol, I don't drink it at all. Usually when you're using vanilla, you're putting it in something where it's going to get cooked out of anyway. So just because it's a slightly bigger than that whole. And I'm going to fill this halfway up with the, with the rum. It's more in there. But your, your alcohol typically you want it at 80 proof or higher. And then I don't know if that was halfway. But you'll notice that glycerin has a very thick, kind of serpy consistency to it. And I'm kind of wondering if that's part of the reason why it's taking a lot longer for the glycerin vanilla to really, you know, get vanilla E. What I might do, a vanilla is sit for another month. And if it still doesn't seem like it's getting any stronger, I think what I'll do is all, or at least by the time that I run out of vanilla in the kit, this next bowl of vanilla, I'm going to divide it in half and then add rum or vodka to each of that. To pay on how this one turns out. So we'll see how it tastes with the, with the rum. And of course, so it'll be a couple months and then I'll get back to you with an update on this once I have a good idea. So anyway, I'm going to mix that up really good. And what you should do, no matter what agent you use to make your tincture, whether it be vodka or rum or glycerin, you really need to come in and shake it up every now and then. And that was the one thing I noticed about the one that was just the straight glycerin. It's really, because it's so thick, it's hard to shake it up. And then what I like to do is I'll put, since I have several of them going at a time. I'll put a date on here as you saw in the other bottle and then I stick it in a dark cupboard. And if I can remember, I try to go in there and shake the bottles every so often. And of course, this already has color to it because of the rum. But you'll want this to be real dark when it's done. That's partly how you'll be able to tell. Okay. So there you have it. Very, very easy. Anyone can do that. So just, you know, kind of do what I'm doing and figure out what works best for you. Like I said, a couple of reasons I try to avoid the alcohol is not just because I don't drink and I just try to avoid alcohol my body period. But it's just a lot more expensive. So I keep trying new ways. But it does work better for pulling all the vanilla into your, into your tincture. So we'll see how it works with a half and half. I have a feeling this one's going to be really good. But one more thing I wanted to show you before I end this video. I almost forgot is, since I still have obviously a lot of vanilla beans in here, I still want to keep them as fresh as possible. I'm going to, all I have to do is put this on here and back him, seal it again. And so I'm using this break blader. You probably seen this in at least one of my videos and I'm Brad from Big Family Homestead. This is where I got the idea for this in the first place. I just stick it in there in the food saver top. In the hole, you have to hold it in there though. And then you pump this up to 15, I want to say 15 PSI. I think that's right. I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a, as Jane will say. I'm not a PSIologist. I'm not a pressureologist. And there we go. Wow. I use this now. I don't, I don't even use my food saver to back him, seal it anymore. This, because this has always been reliable. I've never had failures where with the food saver or the back him, seal it on that no matter which food saver I've used, I'd love him end up being failures and I have to go back and do it again and do it again until I sometimes have to heat up the lid. This, this works, this works better and it's easier to pull out and use. So I recommend getting yourself a break blear and doing your back him seal and then I'll give you a link to these things. They come in both the wide mouth and the regular mouth size and I'll put that in the description box. If I remember, if I forget, comment and remind me and I'll put that in there for you. So anyway, there you have it. So the Noah, make it yourself. Super easy and you'll love it. So take care, thanks for watching. God bless.