Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady wrote:

> ObTopic - found a little bottle of "airplane" vodka and put a pod of
> vanilla in it and I hope to have my own, home grown vanilla extract in
> a couple of weeks. About how long do you think I should let it soak,
> and how much water should I add to the base when its done?

The commercial vanilla extract I have states it's 35% alcohol, and
contains some corn syrup. If you were starting with straight grain
alcohol (Everclear, et al.), I'd dilute the infusion 50:50 with pure
water, and add a bit of white corn syrup to taste. Your vodka is
probably already near the correct dilution, so you might only want some
syrup.

Also, I don't know the chemistry behind extracting vanillin and its
associated flavors from the pod. I would expect that some of the
components would be more soluble in water than in 100% ethanol, so would
extract with alcohol for a week or two, then dilute to 50%, and give
it another week or two...

Dave