vanilla stout advice

[micromaniac]

making a chocolate and vanilla stout for my next brew and have read to soak the pods in vodka for 24 hours before putting them in the fv. would it do any harm if i boiled them for a few mins first ,as they look realy mingin in the bag,also not sure about hops to use and at what rates .any help would be smashing .thanks ...p

[Rookie]

making a chocolate and vanilla stout for my next brew and have read to soak the pods in vodka for 24 hours before putting them in the fv. would it do any harm if i boiled them for a few mins first ,as they look realy mingin in the bag,also not sure about hops to use and at what rates .any help would be smashing .thanks ...p

Two months ago I brewed a stout (35 IBUs of target). After three weeks in the primary I racked it to two secondaries. I put one gallon in a seperate carboy and I added two vanilla beans. I bottled three weeks later and tried one of each after two weeks; both turned out good.

[YorkshireTiger]

Hey up MM, I've done a couple of choc/vanilla stouts now, based it on advice of guys on here, particularly critch, you may have read those posts. I'd never really seen a vanilla pod before and they do look a bit gross, but unless you picked a bad un they should be ok to use as described above. It's smells fantastic after the vodka has absorbed the flavour and aroma of the beans! I don't know about whether boiling would do any harm, and don't really think it to be necessary. I used fuggles hops both times and they worked well. I did notice the second time I did it I got a thin White film on top of the bottled stout,don really know what it was but was a still a cracking brew! Good luck mate

[micromaniac]

yes i,m basing my brew on critch,s brew too.so it,s just a vodka steep then .i always put my brew in kk,s but i do a couple of bottles for yeast culturing at a later date so i might put the left over pods in a bottle just to see how it turns out.
thanks guys

[critch]

over night vodka steep will be fine. i normally use extract, thats normally at least 30% by vol!