Using ginger and cinnamon question

[Pale Ales and Such]

I’m going to brew a 3-gallon Christmas Ale and I’m not sure what to do in regards to cinnamon sticks and diced ginger root.

Should I add the spices into the boil, if so, when?

info I’ve found online tells me I can possibly add everything at 10 minutes left on the boil. Some say at flame out, I even found info where people don’t use cinnamon sticks until a secondary transfer.

what works best?

im doing a 3 gallon version of northern brewers “superior Christmas ale” and their 5 gallon recipe has the user adding the ginger and cinnamon for the entire 60 minute boil but I read that cinnamon sticks can add tannins…so what works best?

should I just use cinnamon powder rather than sticks? What about the ginger root?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Are you using fresh ginger, or candied ginger? Also when it comes to cinnamon the variety can make a big difference, if I recall Ceylon is the nicest and least problematic for harshness. As to when to add the spice, I like the last 5 minutes or flame out… I typically let wort chill on its own over night in a sealed kettle. Just one opinion.

 

[AlexKay]

I’ve taken to doing a “spice stand” for this sort of thing: 10 minutes at 160 F or so. No idea if this is better or worse than flameout; it’s just what I do. Very convenient when hops are standing at the same time.

 

[Gilbert Spinning Horse]

No idea about the cinnamon but I regularly do a ginger ale and I've found the best time to add the ginger is during fermentation. If you dice the ginger and add to the boil for 10 minutes you'll get very little ginger flavour in the finished beer (maybe that's what you want). My ginger ale has plenty of ginger kick and I get this by liquidizing 600g of fresh ginger in the blender, adding water and boiling this for a few minutes in a separate pan on the stove, then dumping the lot into the fermenter when I'm transferring the wort from the kettle. Sort of the other extreme from tossing diced ginger into the boil.

 

[Pale Ales and Such]

No idea about the cinnamon but I regularly do a ginger ale and I've found the best time to add the ginger is during fermentation. If you dice the ginger and add to the boil for 10 minutes you'll get very little ginger flavour in the finished beer (maybe that's what you want). My ginger ale has plenty of ginger kick and I get this by liquidizing 600g of fresh ginger in the blender, adding water and boiling this for a few minutes in a separate pan on the stove, then dumping the lot into the fermenter when I'm transferring the wort from the kettle. Sort of the other extreme from tossing diced ginger into the boil.

Well, the recipe calls for boiling the ginger root for the entire 60 minute boil. It also calls for the cinnamon for the same. I imagine it will give it good flavors though

 

[Gilbert Spinning Horse]

If you're following the recipe then you've answered your own question.

 

[GRBC]

I dice the ginger and add it with the cinnamon to a small amount of bourbon on brew day. When the beer is finished, I add the bourbon tincture to the finished beer.