When to Add the Cinnamon

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overdrive

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So I'm interested in brewing a cinnamon oatmeal stout so it'll be ready around Christmas time/the winter. My question is, what are the differences between adding cinnamon to the boil vs. in secondary? From reading other posts I have gathered that most people who add it during the boil do so for 1-5 minutes and when people add it in secondary they generally soak it in vodka? I'm not sure what the purpose of the vodka is.

Thanks for any advice.
 
The vodka is to "sanitize" it. Not sure how well that would actually work but it's been done here enough that I think we'd hear if it didn't work.

I would add to the boil and let it sit in the primary.
 
Hmm. So you're saying add whole sticks to the boil and then don't screen them out when pouring into primary?
 
The only beer I made with cinnamon (in April), I did just that. I will warn you, it's still conditioning for the holidays. So far I've only opened one (a few weeks ago) and thought it was coming along just fine. I pulled the cinnamon stick out when transferring to the bottling bucket.
 
Cinnamon in secondary worked fantasticall for me last year, but the cinnamon faded over time.

I just figured to up the cinnamon, but boiling might work....
 
Alright. I think I'm going to have to give the boiling/primary a go. In about a week I'm going to be moving back to school so I can't really brew until I get back. Been chomping at the bit to do another batch, but I guess this is good because it forces me to fully think everything through before brew day.
 
I used 2 cinnamon sticks in my pirate ale, and added it to the boil and screened it out before the primary and this worked just fine.
 
Add the last few minutes of the boil. No reason to wait until secondary. The flavor will not be affected by the yeast, so why wait through fermentation?

I always add cinnamon toward the end of the boil.
 
Add the last few minutes of the boil. No reason to wait until secondary. The flavor will not be affected by the yeast, so why wait through fermentation?

I always add cinnamon toward the end of the boil.

Why do anything after fermentation?

Aroma.
 
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