Too Much Cinnamon Prevents Fermentation?

So lately I have been making cider from apple juice concentrate. This tastes great and only costs about $20 per 5 gallon batch after yeast and sugar.

On my 3rd batch of this I added cinnamon (a lot of cinnamon) to some "herb balls" (big mesh balls for tea and stuff) and threw them in at the second fermentation after boiling them to sanitize them. This worked great.

So my most resent batch I just added the cinnamon at the primary without the herb balls. I think this was not a good idea. The cinnamon has formed a thick coat on top of the apple juice. There is little to no fermentation occurring.

It is not the yeast. I used the same yeast starter to do an I.I.P.A. and is fermenting explosively.

When i get home tonight I plan to skim off the cinnamon and add new yeast.

1920fairfax.com Hard Cider recipe (5 gallons on tap):

Ingredients:

18 - Cans of Apple Juice Frozen Concentrate (standard small ones)

1 - pack champagne yeast, I used Lalvin Wine Yeasts EC-1118 (I think it is best if you make a starter but I have not tested that)

2.5 tsps - potassium sorbate (I think that is the right amount)

some - sugar (Table sugar is fine. People say that table sugar gives your beer a cider taste, I am testing this at the moment, but this IS cider so it better have a cider taste.)

Directions:


1. Wipe down the outside of each can with bleach water and rinse with hot water so the inside loosens up and thaws a bit.

2. Poor in a can of apple juice concentrate into fermentation bucket.

3. Fill empty can with hot water from tap and poor that in. This helps to bring up the temp. and rises out the juice can.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 17 more times.

5. Fill bucket with water, the temp. is up to you but you need to get the temp. up to room temp. before adding the yeast.

6. Add yeast. (you can use a fancy cider yeast if you want.)

6. Let set for primary for 1 week and secondary for 1-4weeks.

7. Add Potassium Sorbate to kill off the yeast. (Do not do this if you want to bottle condition. If bottle conditioning skip to step '7a.')

8. Add sugar to taste. I think I added 3 cups or something for the one I was going to serve at a party. Also you can add some water if it is too strong for you. Mine came out to be about 6.5% alcohol which was good for me but some people thought the taste was a bit harsh without watering it down.

9. Force carbonate how ever you would like. We use 5 gallon cornelius kegs.

7a. If bottle conditioning only add normal priming sugar, around 3/4 cup, to a clean bucket. Siphon the cider to this bucket and stir. There is a lot of debate on how to sweeten this if you want. Lactose might be a good idea but so might artificial sweeteners. Both are often considered undesirable but some brewers. Because of this we recommend force carbonation.

8a. Add this to clean bottles and cap.

Hmm...I have never thought of using a concentrate. That really would drop the cost quite a bit. My wife approached me with the question, "how is making your own cider cheaper if it costs over $50 for the juice and sugar alone?" I think next batch will be trying concentrate.
As for the cinammon, there is a post on here somewhere about somebody having the same problem and one of the other users just said to leave it. I am not sure though.

I have no idea why this isn't fermenting- I don't think cinnamon has anything to prevent fermentation. Is there any possibility that there are some preservatives in the juice?

I know when you make bread you are warned not to add too much cinnamon because it will kill the yeast. You can use it, but not overly much. This is found in Cinnamon Raisin Bread recipes, so it must do something.

Cinnamon has antifungal properties. I've used it as a natural fungicide before with good results.

phissionkorps said:

Cinammon has antifungal properties. I've used it as a natural fungicide before with good results.

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+1^10

The antimicrobial properties of cinnamon oil are currently being researched for agricultural and horticultural applications. Same for capsacin and many other plant oils and compounds.

I think the amount of cinnamon needed to inhibit yeast is high enough to make it completely undrinkable, odds are your problem is something else.

This isn't meant as a challenge or anything. I was a bit curious about research on this subject.

Here is an excerpt from a published article on plant oil effects on S. cerevisiae:



Article: Sensitivity of heat-stressed yeasts to essential oils of plants.
Authors: D E Conner and L R Beuchat
Published: 1984
Google scholar: Link

This research is a bit dated, but basically there is some effect of the oils on yeast. Plus, if you let your ferm temps get too high, there is a more drastic effect. Of course, their temps are a BIT out of range (~125F)

Check out the Allium oils!!

Enjoy!

Maybe it's just me, but I doubt that the cinnamon is the problem.

I'm thinking that if you will just remove that 2.5 teaspoons of Potassium Sorbate which you've added to the mix, everything will simply be lovely!

Pogo

O-M-G. Thanks for posting a scientific journal article. That makes me happy.
Man allium and yeast do not go together.

I'm thinking that if you will just remove that 2.5 teaspoons of Potassium Sorbate which you've added to the mix, everything will simply be lovely!

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He isn't adding sorbate until 2-5 weeks after pitching. His problem this time is with fermentation not occurring, so as per his directions, there isn't even any sorbate in the carboy yet.

The cinnamon has formed a thick coat on top of the apple juice.

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Could be aeration issues?

Thank you everyone that has posted a reply. It has given me enough info to form a theory.

So I opened the bucket last night. There was about an inch of cinnamon slime/foam on the top. I think I need to make this part clear so that people understand that I would guess there was about 1/4 pound of cinnamon in this. Cinnamon makes this foamy brown layer on top and a slime stuff layer under that.

I did not pitch any new yeast because I want to know what is going to happen.

This morning it was clearly fermenting. Although it was not as violent as other cinnamon free versions of this recipe. Bubbles are about 15 seconds apart.

So I think that because all of the cinnamon slime was floating at the top, top fermenting yeast probably were not killed off completely but they had a hard time doing their job. It was probably a combination of an aeration issue and the destructive powers of cinnamon. It probably was fermenting when the cinnamon was in it but really slowly.

Seriously, 1/4 pound of cinnamon?

How often are you stirring the must? If you stirred it a couple of times a day, that "cap" would be broken up.

A 1/4 POUND!?!?! Man you must like cinnamon.

That much cinnamon worked in the first batch. But that time I had it in herb balls which sank to the bottom. It only left a small amount of slime at the top. That tasted great.

Tusch I see you are (sometimes by the look of it) are in Milford. I live in Norwood next to Listeramnn's Brewery Supply. I have to shamelessly plug Listermann.com.

1/4 lb? There's no way that can be drinkable. When I made mulled cider two tablespoons was PLENTY.

Hmmm, don't know many HBSs in the cinci area, since I do most of my brewing in Indiana, where I live the bulk of the time. But good to know, I had been driving out to Beechmont, as Paradise was the only brewstore I had checked out so far. Do most of my buying online through necessity. I will look into your shameless plug.

I use less than one tablespoon of cinnamon in 15 GALLONS of my pumpkin beer, and the flavor is very pronounced. At a minimum, you're probably wasting quite a bit of money on cinnamon.

toularat said:

I know when you make bread you are warned not to add too much cinnamon because it will kill the yeast. You can use it, but not overly much. This is found in Cinnamon Raisin Bread recipes, so it must do something.

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Nice... I think I recall running across that in baking as well.

If one was to add cinnamon I'd add it before bottling but during the aging process. It is still likely to impart the flavors pretty well I imagine.

I would think you could add it in secondary, just as I have done with fruits. That way you can always rack off of it to aid in clearing and aging before you bottle.

Yuri_Rage said:

I use less than one tablespoon of cinnamon in 15 GALLONS of my pumpkin beer, and the flavor is very pronounced. At a minimum, you're probably wasting quite a bit of money on cinnamon.

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My girlfriend and I own a small (very small) restaurant so my cinnamon was only $7 or something for a pound. I was trying to make it kind of spicy with cinnamon. If you have ever sucked on a cinnanmon stick you might understand what I mean.

And I agree with you that a tablespoon is really pushing it a bit on the beer side. But this is supposed to be a harsh cinnamon cidery flavor. Half the time these experiments of mine end up being served at parties that don't care what they are drinking.

Almost all of my 1 gallon experiments end up as party drinks. When I realized that most frozen juice concentrates don't have preservatives I had 6 different experiments going on. And I don't think people will be drinking anything that I hand to them at my next party.

I just added 1 tsp of Ground cinnamon to 1 gal of apfel wein during fermentation there was actualy like a krausen and the yeast and cinamon stuck together quite interesting No idea what it was doing

cant use Potassium Sorbate. Making Simple Fermented Beverages