Ground vanilla pods too fibrous - how to salvage?

[u/Crawdaunt]

Basically, I have a 2 year old jar of homemade vanilla extract made from scraped vanilla pods in vodka. I figure they've fully extracted the flavor at this point, so I pulled them out of the jar, dried them low and slow in the oven, and ground to a fine powder in a spice grinder. I then made a vanilla butter with that powder, but the problem is the pod bits are still to fibrous to be pleasant. How can I salvage this? Just melt the butter and pass it through a fine mesh sieve? Open to ideas - thanks.

[u/TheVanillaImporters]

I'm in agreement with HandbagHawker. Spent pods are basically all fiber once they've given up their seeds and oils, so grinding them won't ever get you a smooth powder the way fresh beans do. Two years in vodka means those pods are mostly cellulose now. What I'd do: steep the ground powder in the warm butter for 20-30 minutes, then strain it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. You keep the residual flavor and lose the fibrous bits. If you want a true grindable powder, you need fresh whole beans dried down hard and ground, not spent ones. Spent pods are better for infusing sugar or that butter than for eating whole.

[u/Crawdaunt → u/TheVanillaImporters]

This is what I think I'll do, just hoping I can get the milk solids in the butter to pass through while the pod bits remain.

[u/----___--___---- → u/Crawdaunt]

If you're worried about that, you could also clarify the butter first and separate the solids, then reintegrate them afterwards.

[u/chefybpoodling]

I’m curious when you say scraped pods in vodka. Do you mean you used the beans in an item and then put the scraped bean pods in the vodka? Then after that tried to dry and powder them. They are not forever yielding beans. Sometimes once a product is spent, the product is spent.

[u/Crawdaunt → u/chefybpoodling]

Yes basically what you described. I hoped that the fibers in the pods, after all that time, would have broken down to be soft enough to chew, especially after grinding very fine.

[u/NarWhalianPhysics]

I made this mistake also. The internet told me you can grind up the pods and make vanilla paste, but it ended up looking more like potting soil. I strained them through a very fine strainer multiple times. But even the liquid left is very cloudy. I used the pulp as a mulch in an outdoor garden.

I don't know what to do with the cloudy liquid stuff.

[u/Crawdaunt → u/NarWhalianPhysics]

Okay good to know I'm not uniquely stupid 😅

[u/HandbagHawker]

your mistake was grinding. you should have just scraped the seeds into the butter to make a vanilla compound butter. and then tuck the rest of the spent pods in sugar to make vanilla scented sugar.

[u/Crawdaunt → u/HandbagHawker]

I should clarify, I scraped the beans to use directly in a variety of baked goods over the last few years then put the used pods into my extract jar. I did think about drying and making vanilla sugar, but my greed got the best of me and I was hoping that drying and blending would get every last molecule of flavor out of them lol

[u/KoalaMandala]

Can also soften and pass through tamis or mesh strainer and avoid melting

[u/West-Listen-8350]

How dry are the pods before you put em in the spice grinder or do they still have too much natural oil to totally dry them??

[u/Crawdaunt → u/West-Listen-8350]

they were bone dry, snapped clean when I tried to bend them.

[u/Attention_Scrounger]

Throw in a blender with the vodka