Real Vanilla Extract Cream Soda (Patreon)

Several people have asked about making cream soda using real vanilla, so I've looked at the numbers for everyone and here is how it works.

The first thing you need to know is that vanilla beans typically contain 1% to 2% vanillin (some can be 3%, but that is not typical; closer to 1% is). For experimental purposes, let's assume you have beans at 2% vanillin and get 100% yield (unlikely) from your extract. That means for every 100 grams of vanilla beans, you will yield 2 grams of vanillin, or one-tenth of the Cream Soda Formula, which is fine because not everyone wants 400L of cream soda. This recipe will yield 40L. Though the reason we work with such large volumes is that it allows us to be more accurate with our small measurements, as you will see.

Another important note is that commercial vanilla extract is actually a tincture (see my video on tinctures), which is 10 grams of vanilla per 100 ml which yields 0.2 grams of vanillin, and that is too low to work with when adding the other flavour compounds. We need to make an actual extract (see extract video).

A true vanilla extract is 100 grams of vanilla to 100 ml of 40% alcohol/vodka using the percolator method. Now, I use more alcohol because the vanilla tends to retain some of the alcohol, so I estimate 120 ml. You can buy ground vanilla bean powder but check with the supplier for vanillin content, this powder is often cast-off beans that didn't meet a quality standard so they are ground up and sold at a lower price. Once you have made the extract, you will use the full 100 mL of extract to make the cream soda formula, but the additional ingredients will be used at one-tenth the volume.

Vanilla Bean Cream Soda Formula

100 mL 1:1 Vanilla Extract
6 drops Ethyl Acetate (full concentration)
4 drops Aldehyde C16
2 drops Isoamyl Acetate
3 drops Lemon Oil
1 drop Citral
1 drop 50% Benzaldehyde

For beta-Ionone, we can't measure a tenth of a drop, so you will need to make a one-in-ten dilution (1 drop of Ionone in 9 drops of alcohol and then use 1 drop of the dilution) or skip it. And most of the measures above are slightly more than in the original formula because it is just hard to work with drops as there is some variance between drops. But they are still below the typical maximum usage. And again, you can always add a drop or two more if you want to experiment. There is lots of working room in the formula, though working with real vanilla could get expensive.

The 100 mL of cream soda flavouring will make 5 one-litre bottles of syrup. To make the syrup, you will use 20 mL of this cream soda flavouring in 1 litre of simple syrup. Then you would use 30 mL to 45 mL (1 oz to 1.5 oz) of the syrup per drink.

Important Notes

Depending on the type of vanilla bean you get, your vanilla flavour may not be intense enough. For example, if the beans you get have only 1% vanillin, in that case, it becomes more difficult to extract more vanillin. You could try extracting 200 grams of vanilla bean with 100 mL of alcohol but I suspect your yield will be poor and the costs will get more excessive. There is a limit to how much vanillin you can extract from a bean and keep the vanillin flavour at a workable level in a soda.

If you proceed with this, try to get the best quality bean you can and ask for the vanillin content, you really want a minimum of 2%.

You may find grinding the beans a bit tough as they usually have a moisture content of 25%, so they can form more of a paste when ground, which is hard to extract in a percolator. You can macerate the ground beans and filter them if it gets too thick. You will probably need to press the vanilla mass to get most of the liquid out. 

Just soaking the beans in alcohol will give you a low yield of vanillin, probably 50%. There is a reason commercial vanilla extract is actually a 1-in-10 tincture and not a true extract.

The last issue is your true yield. With all the steps (grinding, extracting, filtering, etc.) your actual yield will probably be around 80%, which means for 2% vanillin content beans you'll yield 1.6 g, which is about 30% lower than the formula, which may make a weaker vanilla flavour in the soda. But maybe the other compounds in the bean will make up the difference. Experiment and find out!

I hope that helps and if you have any questions, please post them below.