Advice...Tips...Help...Cinnamon Sticks?

I'm hoping you guys could give me some advice and tips on this recipe. I will be brewing this as an anniversary gift for my girlfriend.

I know....a girlfriend who loves beer is amazing right?

I wanted it to be something special so I thought of making a nice Red Honey Cinnamon Ale 4-5g batch

Here is what I have so far:

9# 2 Row American
1.5# Melanoidin Malt
1# Crystal 60
1# Cara
1# Honey Malt

0.5 oz Saaz @ 60
0.5 oz Saaz @ 30

How many Cinnamon sticks do you think should be sufficient without making it OH MY GOD it's CINNAMON? I want Cinnamon with a nice sweet honey like finish.

I admire the effort, but honey AND CINNAMON?????

Are you nuts

Two iffy tastes. Good without a doubt, but to a non brewer girlfriend?

She's a brewer. In fact 90% of my beers have been made with her as a co brewer. I've already made a caramel vanilla beer for her with her...this one is topsecret and I know she loves cinnamon. So if not honey, what could go with Cinnamon?

33% specialty/crystal malt reads cloyingly sweet to me.
why so much melanoidin malt?

This is also true. I'll back off the crystal.

I want to give it a nice red tone color. I'm open to suggestions on backing off the Mel if there's another way to go red.

How about kicking the honey out of the equation.

back the Mel to 0.50#
Bring Crystal back in @ 1#

So it will be

9# Pale 2 Row
0.50# Melanoidin
1# Cara
1# Crystal 60L

Personal experience ....... if you are using cinnamon you want it to finish sweet........ probably really sweet.

Cinnamon with no sweetness = bad (just sprinkle a little ground cinnamon in your hand and taste it, not good alone).

I attempted a beer with cinnamon once (holiday spice ale) and vowed never to attempt a spice beer again after that. It was horrendous.

Best of luck.

The only time I have put cinnamon in anything was when I made hard cider. However, this is beer I'm making and I'm not sure how it will turn out. I was thinking the sweetness would balance the cinnamon output. Also, I'm not sure how many sticks to put in...or if it should be just powder.

Well for what it's worth (probably not much since I just told you my beer was awful). I brewed the beer as normal. For the cinnamon, I used one stick (whole). I boiled it in two cups of water for about 15 minutes making a cinnamon tea of sorts. I added this tea concoction (leaving the stick behind) to the secondary after a 3 week primary.

Disclaimer - this is not intended to be advice. I'd do some research and see what you can find on here

This is from experience and experiment. USE 1/2 STICK PER FIVE GALLON BATCH AFTER THE BOIL.

Remember cinnamon is the bark of a tree...too much exposure to boiling wather extracts a phuck-ton of tannins. I had only ever tasted tannins in wine until I sipped this test batch with a stick added for 10 mins of boil

Ive done real honey and cinnamon together in a batch before and it turned out great. Cinnamon is strong though so i would not do more than one stick soak it in star san then add to the secondary, taste each day after three until you are happy with it.

Thank you very much for the tips

Not sure if you'd want to go this route, but I've gotten a noticeable cinnamon taste and aroma in my beer by dryhopping with Liberty hops. Maybe replace the saaz with liberties? Just an idea!

Damn man, sorry my post sounded "my way or the highway"...i was quite buzzed when I wrote it so let me try again sober.

Every BYO article that exists on spice reccomends you use half the amount you originally figured you would use. They argue that spices should add a flavor to beer that the drinker can't quite figure out, then feel stupid when you tell them. So My reccomendation is to add half a stick at flame-out (when you end the boil).

That way you can taste it after fermentation and decide to add more if you rack to a secondary/bottle/keg...but you can't ever take overbearing flavors out

I'll research Liberty and ask around. I haven't used this hop yet. However I love dry hopping.

And Germ, no harm done. I took it as a "Here is my suggestion because of personal experience." Not, "Do this or you will have a horrible brew and fail at life." haha

Ludovico said:

Not sure if you'd want to go this route, but I've gotten a noticeable cinnamon taste and aroma in my beer by dryhopping with Liberty hops. Maybe replace the saaz with liberties? Just an idea!

Click to expand...

I've not used Liberty yet so I have no experience with it but I would expect that you are looking for perhaps a more definite cinnamon flavour? My suggestion would be to look at dry hopping with liberty to add a rounded subtle character to the cinnamon flavour/aroma which would add depth to the brew.

If liberty has a cinnamon character I say its an idea well worth considering

Just wanted to update everyone on the brew. I followed my original recipe and it is amazing. I used 1 stick and 1 pound of honey. After 3 months of bottle aging the flavors pop amazingly well. You get a hint of honey at the front and center of your tongue. As the beer moves to the back of your mouth and finishes, it gives a nice spice note from the cinnamon.

^Good to hear! I was about to chime in with my own personal experience...I'm drinking my Winter Spice Ale now, and I rough-crushed a whole stick of cinnamon and added to the boil at 5 mins. The cinnamon flavor is present, but I would've liked it a little stronger - did you add it to the secondary?

It's also only 2.5 weeks in the bottle, although it's mellowing nicely. It turned out very well, I don't know if I'll be able to hold it for three months to see if the cinnamon profile develops.

I just did a holiday spiced ale that should be conditioned by christmas. The wort tasted absolutely awesome when it was ready to bottle. Cinnamon was the dominant flavor but it's what I was going for in my christmas ale. I used 5 sticks in a 5.5 gallon batch. I put them in a plastic bag and gave them a good smack or two with a hammer to crush them a bit to part more flavor. I also mixed in about a .25 oz of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and sweet orange peel. I through it in the boil at about 30 min. When I racked to the secondary I added 2 sticks of cinnamon to the secondary as well.