Storing vanilla

Storage extends the work of cultivation, preparation and maturation, all the way to the moment when the pod joins a cream, a ganache, an ice cream or an infusion. The gestures are few and simple. Their reason holds in a single idea: the material carries on working once the pack is closed. The store that receives it decides how that work continues.

What still lives inside a closed pod

A vanilla pod is a moist material. It carries water, oils and several hundred aromatic compounds that combine, move and slowly transform into one another. This is the movement that maturation leads during the months spent in rosewood trunks. The same movement carries on afterwards, more gently, inside the container where the pod waits for its use.

Storing vanilla comes down to holding conditions. A pod kept in constancy carries on gaining roundness for months. The same pod placed somewhere that warms by day and cools by night spends in a few weeks a share of what the preparation gave it.

A pod is stored through the water it keeps, through the temperature it undergoes, through the air it touches. Light works on the same ground, more slowly. The odours of the surroundings come in through the door of the air. A closed container, opaque, placed in a temperate room away from strong scents holds the whole set through a single arrangement.

The humidity of the pod, the variable that commands everything

The humidity level of a pod is the direct result of its preparation. Scalding, the stay in the trunk, the drying in the sun, the move into the shade and then the months of maturation bring the material to a precise balance, the one where the skin keeps its suppleness under the finger and where the oils stay mobile inside. The aromatic beam holds to that balance. Ageing builds it, storage extends it. The lot carries this work with it, its continuation plays out in the store that receives it.

This balance varies with the grade. A gourmet pod carries 32 to 38 % humidity, it stays fat and supple. This material gives its best in pastry, where the seed is worked and where the pod has to split cleanly. A red pod holds between 15 and 25 %. This dryness concentrates the aromas within a smaller volume. Two pods from the same terroir therefore call for a different attention. The gourmet carries a reserve of water that dry air takes from it quickly. The red already lives close to its lower limit. The slightest withdrawal takes it below.

Towards the dry, the pod retracts. The skin loses its elasticity, the oils withdraw inwards, the pod bends less and ends up snapping under the finger. The aromas close. A longer and hotter infusion will be needed to bring them out.

Towards the damp, the surface becomes ground favourable to mould. A pod that takes water back takes it back at the surface, where it is the most exposed. The bloom appears there.

The refrigerator and the freezer

This double constraint explains the case of the refrigerator, which comes back in every question. We advise against it. Humidity is the reason. A refrigerated enclosure is a damp environment. The cold keeps water there that the pod captures. At each removal, the warmer ambient air meets a cold surface and deposits condensation on it. The pod absorbs this water, gives it back on the return to the cold, takes it up again at the next removal. This back and forth tires the material and prepares the ground for mould, which appears there more often than anywhere else.

The freezer acts elsewhere, on the internal oils of the pod, which the cold modifies. The delicate moment arrives at thawing, the one where the pods can move.

The storage temperature, between 15 and 25°C

This range protects the internal oils and lets the aromatic evolution happen at its own pace. Beyond it, the material activates, the most volatile compounds leave first and the pod perspires inside its packaging.

Regularity does the work. A room held at 23°C all year round settles the pod into a constancy it crosses intact. A cupboard that swings between 16 and 28°C over the seasons or over the hours makes it pay for every variation. Each gap moves water between the pod and the air around it. The kitchen accumulates these gaps, the oven, the hobs and the dishwasher produce several a day. A cool and stable room, a larder, a store, a dry cellar, holds the material in its constancy.

Light works slowly and in the same direction. Radiation degrades a part of the aromatic compounds and dulls the coat. An opaque container settles the question. A glass tube kept in a closed cupboard settles it too.

Vanilla takes the odours that surround it

A pod is rich in oils. These oils capture the odorous molecules present in the air. A vanilla kept near coffee, open spices, a cheese, a soap or a cleaning product carries these odours after a few days. They enter the body of the pod and remain there, the infusion then carries them into the cream.

This same exchange puts the rosewood to work during maturation, the wood passes its woody base to the pod through the air of the trunk. It also makes a pod placed in a jar of sugar scent the whole of it.

A glass jar with a seal, of the Le Parfait kind, holds the odours outside. A folded pouch or a half-open box let them through as they let the air through. Vacuum packing calls here for a particular vigilance. The film holds the air back. The odorous molecules cross it, a vacuum-packed lot placed near a strong product takes them up through its packaging. The surroundings remain. They act continuously, every day, throughout the whole length of the storage. They weigh as much as the container itself.

The useful reflex holds in a glance at the place before setting a lot down there. Coffee, tea, open spices, garlic, cinnamon, dried fruit, cleaning products, soaps, scented candles. The spice store draws by its logic of arrangement, it gathers nonetheless everything a pod captures. The right place is a dedicated room, with a neutral smell, where the vanilla stays alone. The glass jar with a seal holds that role everywhere else, it creates that room at the scale of the lot.

Containers, from the jar to vacuum packing

Vacuum packing removes the air, stops the light when the film is opaque and strongly slows desiccation. The pod carries on drying, very slowly, on the scale of years. This is the format in which we ship our lots. Once it is open, the protection returns to the container that receives it.

The glass jar with a seal closes squarely, it holds humidity and odours. The glass tube with a screw cap and the metal box work the same way, provided the closure is square. Cork stays porous, it lets the contents breathe in both directions. Glass calls for storage in the shade, metal brings opacity with it.

The volume of the container works as much as its material. All the air enclosed around the pods asks to be humidified. This humidity comes from the pod itself. A full tube keeps its air saturated of itself. The same tube where a single pod remains leaves it the whole volume to charge. A lot that runs down calls for a container to its size.

These containers are recent. Before them, vanilla travelled and waited for more than a century in wooden trunks lined with paper, in tinplate boxes and in glass bottles sealed with wax. The principle is already the same, an enclosed volume, a material that regulates humidity, darkness. Our rosewood trunks belong to that lineage, they remain the place where a pod waits in the best conditions. Vacuum packing takes up this principle in a format that travels.

Storing vanilla powder

Powder is made with a red grade pod, between 15 and 25 % humidity. This firm material grinds finely where a fat pod clumps. Its dryness at the start orients its whole storage.

Powder obeys the same rules on an accelerated rhythm. Grinding a pod multiplies its surface of contact with the air. Everything plays out fast there, the loss of the volatile compounds as much as the taking up of humidity and odours. A powder left in the open takes back in a few hours what the pod gives up over several months.

An airtight container of small size, opaque, kept dry in a stable temperature, covers the whole. The refrigerator poses here the difficulty it poses with the pods, the fineness of the grind amplifies it, the powder takes back the humidity of the air within minutes and sets into lumps.

A well-kept powder holds its intensity for around 2 years. It reaches its summit in its first months, then goes down a fast slope. The good use of a lot in powder therefore consists in grinding by quantities that match the real rhythm of the production.

Frost or mould, reading the surface of a pod

A well-kept pod is recognised by hand. It bends supplely around the finger and comes back. Its skin keeps a fatty shine and a regular hold along the whole length. These readings are detailed in our article on reading a pod.

A white deposit appears at times on the surface. Its reading calls for attention. Fine dry crystals, like frost on a windowpane, are a crystallisation of the vanillin that comes up to the surface. It is a richness, it appears on the most loaded pods. We call these lots marokintana. Our article on frosted vanilla describes the phenomenon and its threshold.

A cottony and matt bloom, often coloured, accompanied by a recognisable smell, belongs to another reading. The difference is seen by the eye and sensed by the nose. If in doubt, write to us, we will guide you.

A pod that has dried or hardened

A pod that has hardened has lost humidity, therefore water. A lower humidity level opens different uses. Powder, extracts, vanilla sugar are made with this material.

To scrape it, a passage through warm milk gives it back a little humidity. Our article on infusion details the mediums and their rhythms.

In professional kitchens

A lot of 500 g or 1 kg moves the question towards logistics. It arrives vacuum-packed. Opening it engages all the pods at once, each one exposed afterwards at every taking.

We recommend that our partners repack according to their needs. One container in service, the others closed. The share that waits keeps its conditions. Our formats of 250 g, 500 g and 1 kg serve this division from the order onwards, as close as possible to the real rhythm of the production. The references for dosage per litre are read in our dedicated article. Our varieties and terroirs present each lot with its profile.

How long vanilla keeps

A well-stored pod holds for a long time. It moves along its curve. The vanillin it carries plays along the way the role of a natural antiseptic that protects it from itself.

This curve rises, then bends. After 3 to 4 years, a pod enters an aromatic decline. It stays good and still gives a frank vanilla. What it loses is elsewhere, in the depth and in the complexity, those secondary layers that make a lot recognisable.

We speak therefore of a window. A lot chosen for its character is worked during the years when that character is heard. The calendar of a menu gains from following that of the store.

Each variety and each terroir gain in depth at their own pace. To explore our profiles, discover our varieties and terroirs, browse our frequently asked questions, or let's talk about your project.