Cinnamon in Hard Cider? Too Much? Possible Fix?

I sent this email question to Leener's but I thought I'd ask it here too:

Yesterday I made my first batch of Hard Cider with cinnamon. The day prior (31 October) I made one without. Both carboys hold 1 gallon. The cider without cinnamon seems to be fermenting just fine. Bubble are coming through the airlock no problem. But the cider with cinnamon seems to be moving very slowly if at all in terms of bubbles moving both in the carboy and to through the carboy. Again there is about 1 gallon of juice and about 1x Tablespoon + 4x Teaspoons of cinnamon (The Tablespoon was too big for the neck of the carboy so I switched to Teaspoons). This morning the was not any bubbles rising through the airlock that I could tell and there was a large amount of what appeared to be a cinnamon blob at the neck of the bottle.

So my questions are the following :

Was that too much cinnamon?
What's a good ratio of cinnamon to apple juice?
Is it too late to add additional yeast?

Thanks for all your help!

FYI:
I used 4.5 cups of sugar prior to adding the cinnamon.
Used Powdered Cinnamon not sticks.

Cider with Cinnamon (1 Nov 2010)


Cider without Cinnamon (31 October 2010)

That may be too much cinnamon. I made a beer with a cinnamon addition and only used 1/4 teaspoon. Just a hint of cinnamon comes out but also note that the batch was 5 gallons. Maybe you should have let the cider ferment out before adding the cinnamon, that's what I did in my beer.

I think you're right I may have killed the yeast. I'm going to ride it out though to see what happens. The worst that could happen now is I learn something.
How much yeast did you use?

For my 5 gal batch of beer I used a full wyeast smack pack

Let me first say I'm no expert with cider and adding cinnamon, but that seem to be a bit much. You could cold crash (put in the fridge for a week or so) see if the cinnamon settles out. And rack to another carboy/jug leaving the majority of the cinnamon behind, and then pitch a small starter to try to kick off the fermentation.

It should still ferment out (you'd need way more cinnamon to kill the yeast, I believe), but it sounds like you have a 5 gallon batch of cinnamon juice to use for blending.

Well I added another TSP of yeast last night. It's definitely still alive. It shot right through the Airlock. I cleaned it out and reapplied the airlock. Now what should I be concerned with?

1st mistake: Adding powdered cinnamon.

.. Well that was your only mistake.

If you want to get your cider off to a roaring start, I'd suggest you buy some yeast nutrient and dissolve it in some warm water (as per instructions), then pour it in. Wait 72 hours for any visible signs (such as little bubbles rising up on the inside of the carboy) before you do this! If that doesn't work, then you will probably need to shake the hell out of it (explained below).

I suspect that the cinnamon you used had preservatives through it that has somehow hindered/stopped the yeast from reproducing or it may have even killed them. If you're going to add spice to your cider you should add it in it's most natural form. For cinnamon, that's a cinnmon stick. For cloves, that's a whole clove, etc. Also, the flavours will be greatly enhanced, so usually one split stick of cinnamon is more than enough.

TL;DR version: Wat 72 hours, add nutrient, next time use cinnamon sticks.


Thought: If it doesn't ferment you could always keep an airlock on it and dump some in another batch to get a cinnamon taste.

Oldmate,
Thanks for your advice. This was the first time I've heard of yeast nutriet. Clearly I'm a little new at this. You also mentioned cloves. Sounds like a interesting addition, I'll have to try it. I asked the guy I bought the kit from at ciderup.com and this was his reply:

The amount of cinnamon that I usually add is 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon. So perhaps the amount you added had done something to the yeast, I don't know. You can try adding more yeast to the mix to see if that helps it won't hurt anything.

UPDATE:

Got home tonight.... Cider was on the ceiling! Guess its working hahaha! Cleaned it up opened up the jug lots of pressure released cleaned out the airlock again. And moved to safer location (for my ceiling at least).

Things have calmed down a bit.

The cinnamon cider has got things under control a bit. The color has definetly lightened up and the yeast is hard at work. The smell though has been a slight sulfric maybe its just the cinnamon. Any thoughts?

+1 with Oldmate, you should use cinnamon sticks, or at least cinnamon chunks. I use them now, and I can get them from a local spice shop that has just about every spice you can think of.

Also, concerning cloves, be very careful. They are potent, and can easily overwhelm anything. I used on ounce in a 9 gallon batch of wine, and it was very dominent at the beginning of the fermentation.

reubadoob said:

Things have calmed down a bit.

The cinnamon cider has got things under control a bit. The color has definetly lightened up and the yeast is hard at work. The smell though has been a slight sulfric maybe its just the cinnamon. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

What type of yeast did you use? They could be stressed out, in which case you might need to add some nutrient dissolved in warm water, or it might just be the type of yeast. If it's smelling like rhino farts, have a search on the forums here and you'll see that it's indeed quite normal, and will settle out.

Well I taste tested the other day and the batch was still a bit syrup like and sweet. The cinnamon flavor though was not at all over powering for me at least. Another batch I made the day previous had a slightly more alcholic kick to it.

Although the cinnamon batch is still bubbling and pushing CO2 out the airlock with a large amount of bubbles sitting on the surface.

oldmate, I'm using champagne yeast. That's all I can tell you right now.

UPDATE:

The syrup has thinned a little bit. It's been a while since I've tasted it once more since last time and it's a bit thinner. Can this be solved through more fermentation? Anyone have any thoughts on tossing a little more yeast in there?

I was thinking of bottling next Sunday. It will be about 4 weeks at that point in the primary fermantation.

That sounds like an awful lot of cinnamon. I like to use cinnamon sticks in the secondary. It's easier to control how much cinnamon taste you get and you can remove the sticks without a mess like powdered cinnamon. You might try filtering the cider through coffee filters in a funnel (a slow process) to remove some of the cinnamon. If all else fails, you might be able to just drink it as plain old apple cider, if the cinnamon is not too overpowering. Good luck.