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**Schlenkerla** · 04-13-2008, 03:19 PM

BYO Published and article on using olive oil in a starter instead of doing aeration to a 5 gal batch of wort.

The premise being that if you add a tiny amount of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA)the yeast will not need oxygen to create UFA's therefore you don't need to aerate wort thus ensuring a longer life before oxydation sets into your beer.

New Belgium Brewing did this on their Fat Tire Ale on a side by side comparison. It doesn't effect head rention but ester production increases though, however not enough for judges to say it was out of spec. After three weeks they thought the standard beers were more oxydized.

The rate of olive oil needed was 1mg/25 Billion Cells. So an average ale w/ 150 billion cells 150/25 = 6mg = .006grams.

The article says unless you have lab equipment to measure this you gotta wing it so to speak. They suggested sterilizing a wire, like one would do a innoculation loop, and dip it in oil then stir it into the starter. Use aeration on the starter like a stir plate. Just pitch the yeast slurry. If a yeast cake use a tiny drop and stir in well.

Sounds like a cool idea if you don't have an O2 set-up.

Source Info: BYO May-June 2008 Vol 14, No.3 page 34

**GilaMinumBeer** · 04-13-2008, 03:39 PM

Old news but still very promising. If your a tweaky brewer like many of us, read the Hull thesis.

**Chairman Cheyco** · 04-13-2008, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GilaMinumBeer

Old news but still very promising. If your a tweaky brewer like many of us, read the Hull thesis.

Think you could tell us a bit about what it states? Or does asking disqualify me from being 'tweaky'?

**Schlenkerla** · 04-13-2008, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GilaMinumBeer

Old news but still very promising. If your a tweaky brewer like many of us, read the Hull thesis.

What other info do you have on this? The auther spoke to Hull in order to write the article.

Brewbeard · 04-13-2008, 03:56 PM

Here is the thesis paper.

I'm going to try this on my next batch. I usually only aerate by shaking up the bucket, but I heard that usually isn't effective enough. Hopefully this works, sounds much easier than shaking up five gallons of wort.

**Revvy** · 04-13-2008, 04:15 PM

There's been a couple threads on the topic since the article came out...One of them, if I recall became uber-geeky

with science types and quickly went over my head...but you may find some good info on them.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/high-gravity-oxygen-olive-oil-55404/

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/thesis-olive-oil-aeration-method-57627/

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/using-olive-oil-instead-oxygen-47872/

**Schlenkerla** · 04-13-2008, 05:09 PM

Wow - I missed all those other threads... where was I?

Anyhow, after reviewing the other threads and the BYO article I'm thinking it would be ok to do the wire dip and drop it in a starter.

With that said, I also think it should be done on a regular brew that you make so you can tell what impact it has on your brew.

Sorry if this is "Old Hat" for any of you.

**Revvy** · 04-13-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schlenkerla

Sorry if this is"Old Hat" for any of you.

The thing is, you may be the first to actually attempt it!

**Schlenkerla** · 04-13-2008, 05:22 PM

I think somebody tried this on a blonde ale in one of those threads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hopleaf

I tried this on an extract I made Friday

Blonde Ale, OG 1.043, very small amount of olive oil, rehdryated Safale S-05

I woke up this morning and it had blow off .. I've never had a medium gravity, dry yeast beer blow off before. I'll wait and see how it ends up but so far so good.

I'll take adding a tiny drop of olive oil to a set of 02 aeration equipment any day of the week

EDIT: 5.5 gallon batch.. the amount of olive oil was the very scientific method of dipping the sanitized tip of my metal meat thermometer into some olive oil and swishing it in the liquor I used to top up the volume in the carboy

**Schlenkerla** · 04-13-2008, 07:40 PM

I was thinking as I was driving off to wally-world for swmbo that I inadvertantly did this last monday when I made my Banana Cream Ale.

The recipe calls for 4oz of banana chips for the boil so I added them as directed. within a few minutes I see traces of tiny oil dots on the surface of the boil. I'm like WTF??? I look at the package and I see it has some coconut oil added.

I thought, its too late now and figured it will either stick to sides of the fermentor or drop out after the syphon. The amount looked neglible but its enough to easy notice as you stir the wort.

I added my Kolsch yeast at about 11PM. The next morning at 5:45AM is was bubbling several times a minute but this was a partial boil and I added about 3 gal of water to get 5.5 gal of wort.

BTW - After topping off I saw little evidence of oil present.