Kauaʻi Traveler magazine features our vanillery

8 thoughts on “Kauaʻi Traveler magazine features our vanillery”

1. Ellie

   April 15, 2019

   Dear Roland

   I had the dis­tinct plea­sure of tak­ing a class from Beatrice yes­ter­day and she real­ly likes your vanil­la beans, as you know. Here is my prob­lem. I do not know which ones to order. I have been mak­ing vanil­la, using rum, for many years and I am delight­ed to read all about your operation. 

   What do sug­gest I order? I make it in a fifth bot­tle that I con­stant­ly replenish. 

   Your advice will be appreciated. 

   We once lived on Cosby street in Queens Acres, back in 1987

   Aloha

   Ellie

   Reply
   1. Roland

      April 15, 2019

      Hi Ellie,

      For what you’re doing, the grade B is the way to go. Those beans are slight­ly less moist, which is a good thing when you’re doing an extrac­tion. The usu­al for­mu­la for extract is 1 oz. of vanil­la beans to 10 fl. oz. of vod­ka or rum. A full fifth is 25 ounces, but you’re not mak­ing straight extract, you’re just keep­ing a bot­tle of it going. That’s how we do it at home too! In a sit­u­a­tion like that, you’d be using less alco­hol, so maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup of booze with your ounce of beans. The add more in a few months when it’s run­ning low. It will be good and strong after a few weeks.

      We’d be hap­py to show you around if you want…email us at [email protected] to arrange it.

      Reply
2. Charlie Neiditz

   October 9, 2020

   Roland,
   I am only 10 days in the sweat box and I am see­ing mold grow­ing on the out­side of the beans. I wash it off and put them into the dehy­dra­tor for an hour, but the next day out of the sweat box, it reap­pears. Any sug­ges­tions? Beans were 6 months post pol­li­na­tion, and picked because they were start­ing to turn yellow.

   Reply
   1. Roland

      October 9, 2020

      Beans that come off the vine ear­ly (sounds like you had no choice in the mat­ter) are unlike­ly to cure prop­er­ly because they won’t have the sug­ar con­tent you need to pre­vent mold. I would say your best path for­ward is to clean off the mold, then pro­ceed straight to dry­ing the beans slow­ly. A dehy­dra­tor is prob­a­bly the safest way to go there. Once the beans are dry, you’ll be able to tell if they are worth keep­ing. They will still be liable to mold after dry­ing, however.

      Reply
      1. Charlie

         October 10, 2020

         Roland, I would like to know if you could refer me (and oth­ers) to a source for pur­chas­ing vine that comes from a good bean pro­duc­ing strain of v.planifolia. Your blog is very instruc­tive on the grow­ing and cur­ing vanil­la, but is remiss on where peo­ple can obtain viable stock to start this ter­rif­ic and reward­ing hob­by. Information on this would be key. Please help us to find rep­utable suppliers.

         Reply
         1. Roland

            October 11, 2020

            Hi Charlie,

            This is a real­ly good ques­tion and although there seems to be sev­er­al online ven­dors offer­ing root­ed, grow­ing vanil­la vines, it would be hard to deter­mine the qual­i­ty of the plant you would be get­ting form them. Probably best to stick with estab­lished nurs­eries for that.

            The ques­tion of obtain­ing plants that are good pro­duc­ers is not one I’ve seen much, even when you read the agru­cul­tur­al lit­er­a­ture, you don’t see men­tion of mak­ing sure you’re grow­ing a good vari­ety, but get­ting local plants from an estab­lished farmer should give you that. In places where vanil­la is grown com­mer­cial­ly, a new farmer will get cut­tings from a near­by farmer, I’ve done this here for sev­er­al oth­er farm­ers here on Kauai.

            What I usu­al­ly rec­om­mend to peo­ple who want to obtain plant mate­r­i­al for prop­a­ga­tion is to first con­tact your state uni­ver­si­ty Agricultural Exteansion. These pro­grams are there for the pur­pose of help­ing farm­ers, they should have local con­tacts for obtain­ing plants.

            The oth­er thing to try is to find out if there are any vanil­la grow­ers in your area. Maybe through an inter­net search or through a local orchid soci­ety. This is a good way to get plants that are known to do well in your area. At cer­tain times of the year, there should be a lot of prop­a­ga­tion mate­r­i­al avail­able when the vines are get­ting pruned.

            I don’t know of any spe­cif­ic sup­pli­ers to rec­om­mend, I’m sor­ry, I have nev­er had to inves­ti­gate that.

            Reply
            1. Charlie

               November 13, 2020

               Roland,
               I was for­tu­nate enough to acquire some v.pompona and was won­der­ing how your cur­ing sched­ule would apply to their beans. Should I fol­low the cur­ing you have out­lined for v.planifolia, or would you alter it, as the beans are larg­er and thicker.
               Thank you for all you do for the vanil­la grow­ers around the world
            2. Roland

               November 14, 2020

               Hi Charlie,

               I don’t have any expe­ri­ence with the cur­ing of pom­pona beans, I’ve nev­er man­aged to acquire the plant. I did advise the per­son I’m buy­ing pom­pona beans from, and they said the tech­niques I used for plain­fo­lia beans were applic­a­ble, but did not go into detail. I’m sure there were dif­fer­ences in terms of the amount of time required, but the basic chem­istry will be the same. In a hot, humid cli­mate, they are often sim­ply air dried under cov­er to avoid direct sun or rain. 

               One impor­tant point that I know only a lit­tle about is deter­min­ing the ripenss of the bean. I believe the beans are inde­his­cent, mean­ing they won’t open on their own. As in the case of Tahitian vanil­la, it can stay on the plant longer, you may even start to see some brown­ing of the ripe fruit. The point is, you will want to avoid har­vest­ing ear­ly, as this will give a low-qual­i­ty cured bean. With plan­i­fo­lia beans, this is a time-crit­i­cal deter­mi­na­tion because the beans will start to open if you wait too long. You won’t have to be con­cerned with that with pompona.

               The sweat and the dry­ing can be done in the same way, but the dry­ing will of course take longer. The beans should end up sup­ple (you can bend them with­out break­ing) but not exact­ly wet inside. It will be com­pa­ra­ble to a raisin or dried apri­cot in how it feels to the touch. Once it’s dry enough, it should be aged for sev­er­al months. I keep them in ziplock bags or weath­er­tight stor­age con­tain­ers for aging. You want to avoid them dry­ing out as they age.

               As you may have noticed, there is almost no infor­ma­tion out there about cur­ing pom­pona. It is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered an “infe­ri­or” bean with lit­tle com­mer­cial val­ue, so it seems no-one has both­ered to real­ly do the work of find­ing the best way to cure them. This is a bias I think you can ignore: you may not be able to use it in the same way as Tahitian or Bourbon vanil­la, but it has a won­der­ful fran­grance all its own. I have read that they are some­times used in per­fumery or to add fra­grance to pipe tobacco.

               If you find out more about these beans, I’d love to hear about it. I find them fascinating.