Ask Mr. Wizard

Using spices

TroubleShooting

Steven Sindt • Iowa City, Iowa asks,
Q

I have tried to brew with cinnamon several times and have been disappointed in the results. Either the cinnamon flavor is nearly undetectable or comes through as bitter (definitely not hop bitterness). What do you recommend?
Steven Sindt
Iowa City, Iowa

A

I must admit that I have developed many beers at the Springfield Brewing
Company over the last 11 years and I am very proud of most of my
formulations. We don’t have a small system to use for formulation and I
usually come up with new recipes based on experience using different
ingredients or reading about ingredients I have not used. There was one
recipe I developed several years back, however, that had cinnamon in it
and the flavor intensity was way too much. Upon returning from a trip I
anxiously rushed to the pub for a pint and was immediately horrified.
The next day that batch was taken off line and given a sailor’s
funeral.

When brewing with spices the first rule is caution. It’s very easy
to be tempted with spices. I think this tendency comes from cooking
things like chili where you taste your concoction as it cooks and add a
dash of this, a dash of that. The difference between brewing and
cooking, of course, is that brewing ingredients are not added by the
dash, so it’s really tempting to add enough spice to be able to
actually taste it. The downside is that adding too much is pretty
easy.

In addition to exercising caution you need to consider what flavors
the spices are capable of adding. As you point out with cinnamon you
can get more flavors than you want. I am guessing that the bitter notes
you got from your cinnamon resulted from boiling in the kettle. Many
spices are best added at the end of the boil and in many cases added to
the beer after fermentation to control how the flavors are extracted.
When I think of cinnamon in beer I think of a nice spicy, inviting
aroma. By boiling aromatic spices the nice aromas dissipate and other
compounds of the spice extract into the wort. In the case of cinnamon
these compounds include tannins from the tree bark. Not only do tannins
add to the perception of bitterness in beer, they add astringency.

Personally I like to have control over my salt shaker. You can have
this control if you brew a spice tea and add the tea to your beer after
fermentation. By using this method you can add the spice little by
little until you are satisfied. If you make spice teas you have many
options on brewing method and can choose to steep in hot water, cold
water, small volumes of beer or neutral spirits. In all cases you brew
the tea and add it to your beer and by doing so retain control.

In conclusion, remember to use an easy hand and to consider your
spicing method. If you are too subtle with the expression of the spice
of choice there is always the next batch where you can tweak your
recipe. Also remember that some ingredients add more than one signature
flavor. I have had chili beers that have so much DMS aroma from green
chilis that I forgot what I was drinking and half expected to get a
kernel of corn stuck in my teeth. Define your expectations and make
sure your planned method is likely to result in success before
attempting to use the method or methods that seem to have failed you so
far.

Response by Ashton Lewis.