diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b1655f77d..5da830d32 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ be deprecated eventually.
 - [#2513](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/2513): create /etc/telegraf/telegraf.d directory in tarball.
 - [#2541](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/2541): Return error on unsupported serializer data format.
 - [#1827](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1827): Fix Windows Performance Counters multi instance identifier
+- [#2576](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/2576): Add write timeout to Riemann output
 
 
 ## v1.2.1 [2017-02-01]
diff --git a/plugins/outputs/riemann/README.md b/plugins/outputs/riemann/README.md
index 2338a00dc..82615728c 100644
--- a/plugins/outputs/riemann/README.md
+++ b/plugins/outputs/riemann/README.md
@@ -34,6 +34,9 @@ This plugin writes to [Riemann](http://riemann.io/) via TCP or UDP.
 
   ## Description for Riemann event
   # description_text = "metrics collected from telegraf"
+
+  ## Riemann client write timeout, defaults to "5s" if not set.
+  # timeout = "5s"
 ```
 
 ### Required parameters:
diff --git a/plugins/outputs/riemann/riemann.go b/plugins/outputs/riemann/riemann.go
index 25cf3011a..1738ca537 100644
--- a/plugins/outputs/riemann/riemann.go
+++ b/plugins/outputs/riemann/riemann.go
@@ -7,9 +7,11 @@ import (
 	"os"
 	"sort"
 	"strings"
+	"time"
 
 	"github.com/amir/raidman"
 	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf"
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/internal"
 	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/outputs"
 )
 
@@ -22,6 +24,7 @@ type Riemann struct {
 	TagKeys                []string
 	Tags                   []string
 	DescriptionText        string
+	Timeout                internal.Duration
 
 	client *raidman.Client
 }
@@ -54,6 +57,9 @@ var sampleConfig = `
 
   ## Description for Riemann event
   # description_text = "metrics collected from telegraf"
+
+  ## Riemann client write timeout, defaults to "5s" if not set.
+  # timeout = "5s"
 `
 
 func (r *Riemann) Connect() error {
@@ -62,7 +68,7 @@ func (r *Riemann) Connect() error {
 		return err
 	}
 
-	client, err := raidman.Dial(parsed_url.Scheme, parsed_url.Host)
+	client, err := raidman.DialWithTimeout(parsed_url.Scheme, parsed_url.Host, r.Timeout.Duration)
 	if err != nil {
 		r.client = nil
 		return err
@@ -212,6 +218,8 @@ func (r *Riemann) tags(tags map[string]string) []string {
 
 func init() {
 	outputs.Add("riemann", func() telegraf.Output {
-		return &Riemann{}
+		return &Riemann{
+			Timeout: internal.Duration{Duration: time.Second * 5},
+		}
 	})
 }