Hello and welcome to you both.
I happen to be a "mad scientist" too. (So says my lovely wife when I'm doing trials.) I've found that some are good right away, like capellas vanilla custard v2, while others do require some time for the flavours to mature, sorta like wine or hot sauce. Most of the vanillas that I've done require 3 weeks minimum. Warm water soaks, submersing in an ultrasonic cleaner or using a microwave may help speed the process some. I personally prefer time to age it naturally. Let it breath some too, by keeping the caps off. Out of reach of kids and pets of course.
Enjoy the process and be careful calculating your nic levels. I never use nic in my trials for simplicity.
Figuring why overcomplicate things. I can always throw the trial into the first "production run" if it is a good mix. Cheers.