Quote Originally Posted by Phhase View Post
I've got, like, a buncha stuff I wanna add, like sticks of cinnamon and the like. Also, a few drops of an, ah, capsaicin-rich sauce I posses, for heat. Should I add this stuff before or after fermentation? I know alcohol is great at leaching flavor compounds like cinnamaldehyde from spices, feels like I should add em' right off the bat, but I'm not sure if it'll interfere.
I'd say that whenever you try any sort of new process or recipe that you have never done before, it pays to stick to the recipe. Otherwise, if things go south, you have essentially no way of figuring out what went wrong and are unlikely to learn how to do it. I'd never experiment on the first batch of anything.