Cinnamon sticks in the boil

[Blu3Ridge]

I can't find a clear answer on this. Some say add cinnamon 15-5 minutes left in the boil, great results. Others say never add cinnamon sticks to a boil because it will produce tannins thus add them to a primary/secondary only.

What has been your experience? BeerSmith when I added cinnamon said add them 5 minutes left in the boil by default, and that's what I did. Now it has me worried that the boiling wort yielded tannins into my beer.

This is my first time using cinnamon as a spice.

Thanks for your input.

 

[RM-MN]

Um, just how many Cinnamon sticks will be adding to your 5 gallons of beer that you would be able to detect the tannins released into the beer? Your beer will already have some tannins in it and the additional amount should be below the level you can detect.

 

[Blu3Ridge]

At the 10 minute mark I introduced my wort chiller to sanitize it, pitched in 1oz of East Kent Goldings for flavor, and added 2 cinnamon sticks. I let the sticks sit in the wort during the flame out and did not rack them into my primary.

The general theme I'm reading is its always better to under spice than over spice, which is why I went with the boil method.

I've even read some micro-breweries (Great Lakes, ie) doing cinnamon sticks throughout a 60 minute boil. Just frustrated I guess as one technique hasn't been deemed superior to the other.

ETA: Also, it has yet to be said what technique is best to control the richness of spice you want to add.

 

[nthammer]

my roomate is a chemistry/physics major and i was just talking to him about this and he described exactly why you DONT want to boil cinnamon sticks, something about the bad flavor carbon chains breaking off at that heat, but at 160 the right flavor compounds are released. I cannot get as technical as he did, but he's a pretty smart guy so i'll take his word.

 

[tagz]

Subscribed.

 

[Hello]

my roomate is a chemistry/physics major and i was just talking to him about this and he described exactly why you DONT want to boil cinnamon sticks, something about the bad flavor carbon chains breaking off at that heat, but at 160 the right flavor compounds are released. I cannot get as technical as he did, but he's a pretty smart guy so i'll take his word.

The last member who had a friend who was some kind of science major was wrong. Your friend isn't exactly wrong but 2 sticks to 5 gallons at about 10-15 before flameout has had no noticeable adverse affects on my beer. I did not rack to primary with the sticks. Did he consider the amount of sticks to gallons of beer?

 

[MedBrewer]

I see this is a bit of an older thread but I have a similar issue. I've made to beers with cinnamon sticks in them and both have had a weird plastic/soapy mild flavor to them, it's not over powering but more of an undertone. Could it be from the cinnamon added at beginning of boil? Its what the recipe called for. This has only happened when using cinnamon.