By Sara Anderson
To split or not to split, that is the question!
A lot of people split open their vanilla beans prior to making vanilla extract. To do this, you can cut off the ends of the bean and use a seam ripper or a pair of scissors to open one side. Or, just use a sharp knife to carefully cut the vanilla bean lengthwise.
But the question we get a lot is, does this step really help?
As a moderator and admin team we have made buckets of vanilla extract over the years! In our experience splitting may speed up your extract, but if you let it go long enough, there will not be a discernible difference between split and whole beans.
Thank you to Len King for this photo and experiment!
Pros to splitting:
- extract may be usable faster
- extract may have vanilla caviar floating in it that will pour into recipes
- resulting extract is typically darker in color
Pros to leaving whole:
- beans can be preserved to use the caviar in specific recipes rather than every time you use your extract.
- if you change your mind and want to make paste with the beans later you have that flexibility.
- Less work to get the extract going
- You always have the option to cut up the beans later, but you can’t put them back together into whole beans.
- resulting extract is typically clearer
Be advised--a common concern people bring up is when their extract is extremely cloudy, "muddy" looking, or viscous. This is most likely to happen when the beans have been chopped, split, or scraped. The inside connective tissue around the caviar (seeds) of the bean is incredibly sticky and gooey, and can make for a thicker, stickier, cloudier extract. 
There’s no perfect right method for everyone, but what I prefer to do: make a strong extract (1.5-2x the recommended amount of beans) leaving the beans whole. Then, when I want to use the caviar of a bean in a recipe, I remove one from my extract jar, cut the end of the bean off with scissors, and squeeze the caviar into the recipe like a tube of toothpaste. This prevents me from getting the fibrous bits that tend to come off when the bean is scraped with a knife. After squeezing out the caviar, use the kitchen scissors to cut the pod into small pieces and put them back in the extract jar. When the extract is about a year old and the caviar has been used in recipes, I like to pour off the extract in a separate jar to use. Then I dry out any last bean pieces, grind them into powder, and use the powder itself in recipes! Zero waste, and delicious vanilla!
There’s really no “Right” and no “Wrong” method when it comes to splitting beans or not. And you’re absolutely encouraged to try both ways yourself to see what you like best! Enjoy your vanilla adventures!