Hi Dolores, we recommend keeping the vanilla bean in the alcohol for up to 12 months. If it sits longer than that, the vanilla bean may start to break down. If this happens, not to worry; you can easily remedy this by straining the extract before using with a fine-meshed strainer. As for what to do with the bean once you're made your first batch of vanilla extract, you can try re-using the bean to make another batch of extract, though it'll take longer to infuse and may be weaker in flavor. Another option is to make vanilla sugar, my favorite way to use up vanilla beans. There will be a full tutorial on how to make vanilla sugar on our blog soon, but in the meantime here's the basic instructions — pulse your used vanilla beans with sugar in a food processor. I like to use about 1 bean to 1 cup (198g) of sugar. Put the sugar-vanilla mixture into a jar with a lid and let it infuse for at least a few weeks. You can then use your vanilla sugar to sweeten coffee, garnish desserts, and more. Happy baking! Kye@KAF

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