I'm the PP that makes her own extract. My beans come smelling heavenly just FYI. There is nothing "off" about the smell right from the get go. They also are not dry feeling when I get them. I would not invest any more time or money into ones that don't smell good.

Mine come in a ziplock (they are purchased through a co-op that gets them straight from a farmer in Madagascar.

I bought them just a few days ago from an online place that specializes in vanilla beans via their Amazon store. They came in a vacuum sealed package that I just opened this evening, so they shouldn't be that old. They do not look moldy or dried out but they smell pretty terrible, at least to me. I thought maybe the actual vanilla aroma will come with cooking but it didn't happen either. I'm just perplexed.

Did you buy them from a reputable place?

I make my own vanilla extract (beans from Madagascar and either Bourbon or Vodka). I am not sure you can keep beans very long outside of alcohol. could they be bad? I was told that they had to be kept submerged in alcohol or they could grow mold. I would google that to make sure you don't get sick.

I usually use vanilla extract but decided to be fancy and bought madagascar vanilla beans. They don't smell like vanilla at all but have a very specific pungent smell. I added one to rice pudding, scraping insides but it still doesn't smell like vanilla even after cooking, it mostly just smelled like nothing and I had to add vanilla extract at the end. They don't seem moldy and are kind of small, black and sticky and have this very specific pungent smell, not vanilla like at all. Bad beans or am I missing something?