Sustainability: Keeping Vanilla Growing
November 5th and 6th, 2013, Crowne Plaza - Jamesburg, NJ
Curing of Vanilla Beans – the Long and the Short of it
Dr. Daphna Havkin-Frenkel
Bakto Flavors, LLC
Edison, NJ
Dr. Arvind Ranadive
Premier Vanilla, Inc.
Newark, NJ
A curing process is used to bring out the prized vanilla flavor in green vanilla beans. In a traditional protocol curing comprises: 1.Killing, by heat freezing or other methods, to disorganize cellular organization in the bean tissue. 2. Sweating, by holding killed beans at 45° to 65° C and high humidity, which provide conditions for enzymatic hydrolysis and release of vanillin or other flavor constituents from their respective precursors. 3. Drying, in ovens or exposure to sun heat, as a preservation method, and 4. Conditioning, by holding the beans at ambient temperature. This step is used for further development of the vanilla flavor, apparently through non-enzymatic oxidation or other processes. The traditional curing method is prolonged, over weeks or months and, moreover, accompanied by the loss of flavor constituents, notably vanillin a major flavor component. This presentation will address the merit and disadvantages of the traditional and short-term curing of vanilla beans.
Dr. Daphna Havkin-Frenkel has unique qualifications. She holds a BS and an MS in the area of Agriculture from Hebrew University, and a PhD. in Food Science and an MBA from Rutgers University. Dr. Havkin-Frenkel has 25 years experience in the area of flavors, mainly vanilla. She has published extensively in the area of vanilla biotechnology and has been invited to worldwide symposiums as a speaker on the subject. Daphna organized the first international congress on vanilla in Princeton, NJ in 2003, the second in Cannes, France in 2004, and has held biannual conferences on the subject ever since. She divides her time between Rutgers University, doing research on vanilla, and Bakto Flavors LLC, manufacturing and marketing a line of vanilla and other natural flavors, spices, sugars, and vinegars to the gourmet and food service industries.
Dr. Arvind Ranadive is the President of Premier Vanilla, Inc. Since 1980 he has worked in the field of vanilla chemistry, cultivation, curing, and technology and has continued offering consultation services in those areas without jeopardizing his role as a specialty vanilla products producer. He has worked on vanilla cultivation in Indonesia, Costa Rica, Uganda, and Jamaica, conducted vanilla workshops in Uganda and Guatemala, given seminars on vanilla in India and the Peoples Republic of China and has visited vanilliaries in Mexico. He has participated as a speaker in every vanilla conference organized by Bakto Flavors. Dr. Ranadive has published 15 research papers in the areas of Vanilla, Tea, and polyphenol chemistry and has written a number of book chapters on Vanilla.