I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience using vanilla alternatives. With vanilla going for over $200/lb and no end in sight for the elevated prices I am thinking about alternatives like vanillin or ethyl vanillin. Any feedback would be appreciated by anyone who has used them. I ordered some ethyl vanillin as it is pretty cheap but just tasted a little on my finger and it does not taste how i'd expect it too and has a strong bitter flavor but I expect that would be masked by the chocolate bitterness. 

Vanillin is typically 2% of the vanilla bean.
Ethyl vanillin is 3 times stronger then vanillin. 

I suggest you not to taste this stuff pure you can do the math how much you can use to have the same vanillin content, in case you use vanilla extract it is handy to now the % vanillin it have. 

You will not have the same flavour like with real vanilla beans. 
Other options that are more expensive are (powder) flavours, they typically contain also other flavour chemicals to mimick the vanilla flavour more. 

So a little goes a long way also with flavours there is mostly a recommended dosage of 0,5 to 5 g/ kg depending on the manufacturer.

There are also extracts that 0,1 g is good to give 10 kg an intense vanilla flavour.

I could see why the pure powder would be so repulsive then as if vanillin only makes 2% of the vanilla bean and then ethyl vanillin is 3 times stronger than that , that makes it 150 times stronger than the bean so it must be a total flavour overload lol. I'll have to try it in a small batch then to see how it works. Thanks for your reply.

updated by @rawchocolatelife: 04/11/17 15:27:32