Vanilla additions

[Hoppkins]

Hi all, finally got back to starting to brew again after a rather long hiatus. Money been tight and electricity prices and grain prices are killer..

Anyway making the good wife a brew for christmas. Planning on adding actual vanilla to it.

I did a search but had issues finding anything conclusive, ive read you can add vanilla to vodka then add that into secondary. Trouble is i dont really do secondary... I usually do primary for an extended period then keg and mature. So my question is if i added some vanilla to vodka and added to 5 gallons of bitter how much vodka would be enough do you think to flavour sufficiently.

I would be looking for quite a bold vanilla flavour, not just a hint. Kind of like the vanilla flavour Sailor Jerry rum has.

Thanks

[Barley Water]

A couple of year ago, I decided that I would add vanilla (as well as some other spices) to an alt like brown ale. I don't know what the hell I was thinking but the beer had a very "apple pie" type taste. Never one to leave a bad thing alone, I decided I would then try to make an "oatmeal cookie" type brown ale. I made a brown ale with toasted oats, vanilla and other spices. Again, I got the apple pie taste. I have come to the conclusion that you are really asking for trouble adding vanilla to beer, the stuff has a very strong taste that will easily overpower anything else going on in the brew. What I tried to do was to add the vanilla to taste with an eyedropper then scale the whole thing up to a 5 gallon batch. I think what happened is that my pallet got overwhelmed when trying to dose the beer and I ended up adding too much. Anyway, I like apple pie but when I want a beer, I generally don't want a desert if you know what I mean. I did notice however that when I brought the stuff to a party it went pretty fast so maybe it is just me but I would be very careful with that stuff.