Place your vanilla beans on unbleached parchment paper and bake in the oven for around an hour and a half at 170 degrees.
Check on the beans every 30 minutes to see if they are hard. You may have to cook longer, but you don’t want to burn them. They are ready when they are brittle and will break easily.
Break up your vanilla beans into small pieces.
Put the broken pieces into your herb or coffee grinder and grind for 30-45 seconds. Keep grinding until there are no more chunks.