Stinky Vanilla Beans

I ordered the cheap ones. It was all I could afford. Not sure WHY I felt I just had to have vanilla beans, but I’d been unable to shake the desire to have them for a long time, so I just did it one day.

They came in, and I opened the package and just about got knocked over. They did NOT smell like vanilla. The smell that came out was more like a pigpen.

They smelled of ammonia, and almost of fecal matter. Not quite, but that’s the only description I can gather up that even comes close to the repulsive smell that exuded from those beans.

I was really disappointed. What now?

After much contemplation I decided to dry them more. Maybe I could at least use them in a medicinal preparation (vanilla beans have tonic healing elements).

The beans were pliable and moist. They should have been crispy dry.

Now, people will TELL you they are supposed to be moist, but ONLY if they are FRESH. They tell you that the rich vanilla aroma and flavor will be damaged by over-drying.

If you dry them to a damp pliable state, they DECAY instead of being PRESERVED.

Turns out they DECAY and start to SMELL of ammonia and pig mire! The PROBLEM was that they weren’t dried enough to begin with!

This is another of those instances where a pernicious MYTH has overtaken an industry to the destruction of good food. While it is true that drying them completely does allow a bit more evaporation of some of the more volatile aroma and flavor, it is also true that drying them INCOMPLETELY absolutely RUINS the flavor and aroma to the point that people discard the beans because they are so repulsive.

I went ahead and dried them some more. It took 2 days on lower heat.

The first day in the dryer they stank. But by the end of the day they stank less.

The second day in the dryer they did NOT stink, and they began to smell like vanilla.

When they were done, the foul smell was gone, and what was left was vanilla that didn’t smell strong, but that did smell like vanilla! They are entirely usable, and that is something I did not see coming! I didn’t think something that smelled that bad could be rescued!

I ordered some vanilla from another company right after I received the nasty stuff. This new batch was far more costly, though it is still considered inexpensive for vanilla.

When it arrived, the package I opened was delightful. Smelled deliciously of creamy custardy vanilla.

I opened another package, and it smelled faintly of ammonia and pig mire. The third one did also. This confirmed what I learned about it not keeping well if not dried completely.

I popped the beans into the food dehydrator and ran them until they were crispy dried. All of them smelled good once dried.  I stored these in a separate container for use in cooking.

I’ve used the lower quality ones in medicinals, and they have imparted a rich custardy vanilla flavor when used liberally. They also help the flavor of the extractions that I add them to.

So when you get your vanilla beans, DRY THEM! And if they smell nasty, don’t throw them away, DRY THEM, and see what happens. It is likely to be miraculous!