eggy/oz=australia (8:45:54 PM) :

This was also posted by another viewer on NG... (Don't know if it really works?)
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HOMEMADE VANILLA

I made vanilla last year for my mom and I. I made mine double strength and hers single, but they both turned out wonderful IMHO :) A couple of things...I'm not sure of the size of your bottles, but it takes 4 whole beans to properly flavour 750 ml of alcohol, and that is for single strength. You need to scrape the seeds and add them along with the pods. (You do get more flavour this way.) It takes a month or two (I impatiently waited a month for the double, 6 weeks for the single). You'll know when it is ready because it will no longer smell overpowering like alcohol, but will instead smell sweet and like the vanilla beans. Also, rather than vodka, try using bourbon whiskey next time. It is what is used for most of the vanillas you can buy commercially and lends itself better to this.