Using Olive oil instead of Oxygen

Williams 728
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There's no harm. I've been messing around with this for a while and have come to the conclusion that the proper amount is so far below the threshold that would have negative affects that there is no downside. Try it on a recipe you make regularly and see what your results are. I look at it as an additional yeast nutrient that will help assure healthy yeast cells. I've stopped any aeration other than what happens from dumping my wort quickly into the fermentor and have had good results. I use the OO in my starters on a stir plate. I also have no way to quantify how helpful it is other than a good product.
 
I've been using it on all my starters for the last year (just like the research paper says) and have had no ill effects. I put in a few drops, and most of the extra floats and gets poured off later.
 
seabass07 said:
There's no harm. I've been messing around with this for a while and have come to the conclusion that the proper amount is so far below the threshold that would have negative affects that there is no downside. Try it on a recipe you make regularly and see what your results are. I look at it as an additional yeast nutrient that will help assure healthy yeast cells. I've stopped any aeration other than what happens from dumping my wort quickly into the fermentor and have had good results. I use the OO in my starters on a stir plate. I also have no way to quantify how helpful it is other than a good product.
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Sure you do. Do a split batch. Use OO on one half and just pour the other half like you usually do. The do a blind triangle tasting. I bet I know what the results will be.....
 
Denny said:
Sure you do. Do a split batch. Use OO on one half and just pour the other half like you usually do. The do a blind triangle tasting. I bet I know what the results will be.....
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This would be the experiment to do, and one that wasn't actually done in Grady Hull's thesis.
 
Denny said:
Sure you do. Do a split batch. Use OO on one half and just pour the other half like you usually do. The do a blind triangle tasting. I bet I know what the results will be.....
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Most likely, absolutely no difference. I've had good results with and without it. My point about not being able to test it is due to the fact that there is a lot of aeration going on during the transfer.
 
>>Most likely, absolutely no difference. I've had good results with and without it. My point about not being able to test it is due to the fact that there is a lot of aeration going on during the transfer.

I don't think the aeration during the transfer is as much as you think. It may be 3PPM, not 8PPM.
If OO is as good as a minute of vigorous shaking/rocking the fermentation bucket/carboy, there probably isn't much advantage.

On the other hand, if OO helps augment the dissolved O2, it might be worth it.

I think a better test is - normal transfer + OO vs active shaking. Also, for higher gravity beers, does the OO help?
 
I had been a fan of this for a while until my last two batches were contaminated by the olive oil. I now use a wine whip for aeration.
 
Denny do you happen to know the conditions on that experiment? All I could find is ‘OO vs 02'. How much oxygen? How much oil? Any incidental aeration? What kind of beer?

If they were going with the nonsense with the toothpick it would be way different than a couple of drops.

Also not sure what sort of flavor ‘clean’ is.
 
Wynne-R said:
Denny do you happen to know the conditions on that experiment? All I could find is ‘OO vs 02'. How much oxygen? How much oil? Any incidental aeration? What kind of beer?

If they were going with the nonsense with the toothpick it would be way different than a couple of drops.

Also not sure what sort of flavor ‘clean’ is.
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I think Vance covered that in earlier posts, but I'm not certain. You could certainly contact him and ask for details. I have a fair amount of confidence in his experimental techniques, though.
 
Thanks Denny for the quick response. I‘m not trying to impugn your buddy.
I just can’t evaluate the conclusion without knowing what the question was.

In the original Brady Hull experiment, the more oil was used the better it worked up to 1mg/L. He suggested even more might be better. The beer tasted better and had more flavor stability after three weeks at room temperature.

Here’s a link to the original thesis for readers not in a coma from this really long thread.-http://www.haandbrygforum.dk/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/Olive-oil-thesis.pdf
 
This is interesting....http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22416&p=218107#p217847

From an email from New Belgium....

"To translate that into a 5 gallon size, you would need to measure about 0.0000833mL of olive oil. For any practical purpose, that is much too small an amount to accurately measure out. You could fudge and just add the tiniest imaginable drop to the yeast you have, but you'd be over-dosing the oil by thousands of times the required amount, and run the risk of having zero foam retention. Not a good compromise in my opinion."
 
All controls were aerated in-line, with micro filtered compressed air, in excess of
saturation for the entire duration of the transfer according to the breweries standard
operating procedures. The tests were not aerated. For the test fermentations, olive
oil was added to the yeast in storage tanks five hours prior to use and the amount
added increased with each trial.
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What Hull did was no air or oxygen for the oil batches. The people on this forum that have reported success with oil are aerating the wort somewhat through normal handling. It occurs to me that might be the best of all possible worlds. We could reduce staling and still have healthy happy yeast without all that shaking and bubbling.

Just wondering where Vance was on that spectrum and if he fell for the toothpick hooey.

Yup, that’s where toothpick hooey started. He made a mistake, it should have been .083 mL, about two drops.
 


I've tried one or the other but they suggest using both to boost the ppm of O2 for us shakers
 
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Ooh! I just had a thought. Yeah, I know, but it happens sometimes. I’m not set up to do this now but I will be in the winter.

I did two identical batches a couple of years ago but the tasting was mostly me and I knew which was which. I could try it again and do a blind tasting with BJCP judges this time. I’m thinking just tell them the category and that there is one variable different, not even tell them if it’s process or recipe.

In the winter I use a space heater in my laundry closet. I could get away with using a thermowell in only one of the fermenters, they should be identical.

Am I missing anything? What do y’all think?
 
Do a blind triangle tasting. Don't tell the tasters anything except that one beer is different from the other 2 and ask them to identify which one it is. Then take the people who correctly identified the different beer and ask them a series of questions about its flavor. BTW, this has been done...it's by Vance Barnes, whose results I mentioned earlier in this thread.
 
Doing this on my next hef. Gonna be my first 10+ gallon attempt and I don't have a very good aeration system in place yet. Hopefully I'll have some good results to post on this.
 
Haputanlas said:
Doing this on my next hef. Gonna be my first 10+ gallon attempt and I don't have a very good aeration system in place yet. Hopefully I'll have some good results to post on this.
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How about splitting the batch so you'll be able to compare and give it a fair judgement?
 
One more small data point on the olive oil thing.

I recently tried it after reading about it in a yeast book. Unfortunately they made no mention of quantities, though I guess it would be a small quantity.

I poured in as little as I could (which I estimate to be 1-1.5ml) into my 2.5gal batch. There was no problems with this beer's head retention and even though it was my first time brewing this beer it turned out just fine.

BrewOnBoard
 
Denny said:
But would it have turned out just as well if you did nothing?
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I don't doubt that I would have. I think my data point is potentially useful because I put in WAAAAAY more olive oil than is recommended and it didn't ruin the beer. I read a thread where a guy put in much more than I did and ruined his batch, so it looks like the point at which a beer gets ruined is above how much I put in and below how much the other guy used. (sorry I can't recall exactly how much it was)

That's about all I think I can learn from it.

BrewOnBoard
 
By the way, a good buddy of mine uses nothing but the OO method and swears by it. A few of his beers have been pretty fantastic. Can't say all are great, but I also don't think the lesser brews were lesser because of the OO. More likely just a recipe issue.
 
Haputanlas said:
By the way, a good buddy of mine uses nothing but the OO method and swears by it. A few of his beers have been pretty fantastic. Can't say all are great, but I also don't think the lesser brews were lesser because of the OO. More likely just a recipe issue.
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You could also argue that his lesser brews were less fantastic because of the addition of OO. That possibility is equally likely if you are going to rely on anecdotal information.
 
broadbill said:
You could also argue that his lesser brews were less fantastic because of the addition of OO. That possibility is equally likely if you are going to rely on anecdotal information.
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Absolutely. Split batches are the only way to go if you want to be sure.
 
I used oo in a bastardized dfh120 clone attempt. I stepped up to huge starters and used one drop each time. I'm sure my readings were skewed because of the high alcohol content but out of a seven gallon batch separated into 4 and 3 gallons to ferment, I got them to 26% and 19% respectfully with no aeration at all
 
the white labs blog had a post about this in July, I emailed her my results from my Belgian ale experiment several years ago where I split the batch (12gallon) 7 ways, one 6 gallon carboy that got O2 and a starter made on the stir plate and 6 one gallon jugs, one got O2, one had no aeration and three got a drop of olive oil, all batches where pitched with 1^6 cells/ml/º Plato. I did not see a big difference between the six one gallons over all, but the OO batches all finished about a day quicker than all the other batches. One note was all the One gallon brews tasted the same but the 6gallon batch had a better ester profile. This was most likely due to fermenter geometry and not the addition of olive oil
View attachment Olive Oil experiment.xml

I think Neve from White labs makes a good point that OO used on fresh liquid yeast cultures might not be the best way to test this, where the benefit might not be as noticeable on healthy yeast from the lab, but would be more beneficial one later generations of yeast from the brewhouse.

I think what will be more interesting to see, and a new trial will be done, is how these methods affect later generations – second and third generation fermentations. I think we’ll see more variation. So for the next one, I’ll do several brews.
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Just read through the full thread. I recently found Hull's paper after the head brewer at Smuttynose recommended OO as a way for a homebrewer to aide the fact that it is tough to get more than 2-3 ppm of Oxygen with splashing/aeration. (and don't want to add to their eqiupment surplus with o2 tanks, aquarium aeration pumps, etc)

I'm not sure everyone posting read or really understood Hull's paper. The tiny amount of OO was added to yeast POST FERMENTATION, while in storage, as a prep for the NEXT batch. I don't want to read into the full details, so biology PHDs, feel free to correct me. But I believe it amounts to the yeast using O2 to process something or other, which ultimately strengthens the yeast. Rebuilding cell walls and making them strong for propagation (yeast sex/duplication). Aeration is a great way to do this, but long term has an impact on storage. Something commercial breweries care about. OO was used during yeast storage, 5 hours before use in this experiment, to allow the yeast to re-strengthen themselves. (Like Pop-eye eating his spinach to prepare for a fight, not after Bluto has already beaten him to a pulp)

The experiment showed that, comparing a beer aerateted to 9-10 ppm of oxygen vs OO, there was not a significant difference. There was a longer lag time and more esters created using OO. This leads you to believe the OO is not quite as good as aeration, but it also replaces negative long term beer storage impacts. And the ester/lag difference can be OK, even mitigated with more OO. It is too bad the experiments did not continue until the threshhold of "how much is too much" was found, to find the optimal amount. But - optimal amount would depend on the yeast type as the paper stated. Something that would really require lots of experimentation across yeast strains

(Side note - there are some comments that New Belgium stopped this practice due to their perceived impacts to longer term storage. Does anyone know this as fact? This would be a cool thing to get a comment on from NB. I assumed they stopped practice of this right after the experiment because using O2 is the old reliable method. Actually, probably only using OO for these tests and then back to their normal procdess. Did they measure storage past the 3-4 weeks that was discussed in the paper results, which showed OO held up better? Extrapolating those results would give the edge to OO. And remember - they did actually sell the OO version to paying customers after passign all in house tests)

What would be more interesting to a Homebrewer that doesn't have an aeration stone - what are the scientific results of this using the splash/shake method (which is somewhat understood to give 2-3ppm) versus using a drop of OO - at the right time.

Sounds like most people have been adding that drop to the fermentor. At that point, the yeast have been diluted throughout the full 5G of wort (not sure what impact that would have, putting in the drop of OO) and the yeast would have started to propegate right away anyway - eating the newly found sugars! They would be doing this with their puny, unhealthy cell walls. If this is how people were experimenting, they were not following the process and missing the point of the use of OO.

I've had trouble getting those last few points of attenuation. I was about to give into an aeration stone because I know I'm far short on needed oxygen. However, just started with the OO method.

For the last batch, made the starter as normal, after 36 ish hours it was put in the fridge to drop the yeast so I can pour off the wort. 5 hours before I knew I would pitch, with the yeast at room temp again, 1 tiny drop of OO was added to my starter flask. This was all pitched to the wort.

I wish I had read this thread first. My 10G batch was already split to 2 fermentors, but both used the same starter yeast. Next time I'll compare.

This would be a cool experiment for BYO to do. Get a bunch of people to send in batches. 1 using the splash/shake method. 1 using OO. Let them send these off to labs for actual ester/compound/whatever testing - and taste testing. Has there not been more testing on this? I'm just starting my Interwebs search for more information now. I'm surprised this thread was started 4-5 years ago and I don't see a lot of other good information on it. Maybe that does mean its truly a failed method. But haven't seen any proof for that.

Thats my 50 cents. Reading Hull's thesis made sense. Seems like people just adding OO to the fermentor though is not nearly following a process that would create any benefit to using the OO. Missing the point. I do wish the initial experiments were expanded upon, but if that was all that was required for the PHD paper I would have stopped to. Writing papers is annoying. Can't believe I rambled on this long in this post.
 
Bsquared said:
the white labs blog had a post about this in July,
View attachment 86533
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Dude - where were you before I started writing my stupidly long post!?

Link to the results of that WL study.

Results are a bit of a pain to read, since there was 2 batches (A & B) and they show the results as every other: A, B, A, B.

But based on that, no big impact. Which is a positive for OO. Although I'm surprised the 5ppm Oxygen held up so well. Would have been a better test to include 2ppm (like most homebrewers likely get)
 
I am of the opinion that just transferring wort into the fermenter can add more oxygen to the wort than desired for a split batch test. Because of this, I plan to add a blanket of C02 into the fermenter before the transfer (via my kegging system) and then run the transfer.

So, the goal is to make a 10 gallon batch of Hef with 5 gallons OO (as little Oxygen introduced as possible) and 5 gallons Oxygen (Manual shake since I don't have pure Oxygen).

One question though. If I am creating a starter for both of these, there is a significant amount of oxygen that will be added during this phase. Do you think this will affect the outcome of this test?
 
Haputanlas said:
I am of the opinion that just transferring wort into the fermenter can add more oxygen to the wort than desired for a split batch test. Because of this, I plan to add a blanket of C02 into the fermenter before the transfer (via my kegging system) and then run the transfer.

So, the goal is to make a 10 gallon batch of Hef with 5 gallons OO (as little Oxygen introduced as possible) and 5 gallons Oxygen (Manual shake since I don't have pure Oxygen).

One question though. If I am creating a starter for both of these, there is a significant amount of oxygen that will be added during this phase. Do you think this will affect the outcome of this test?
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What are you attempting to test? Whether the OO addition is the same as oxygenation or whether the OO gives you a better result than no oxygenation?

You have a lot of variables going on there. Seems like you need to pick one scenario out and make sure all the rest are equal between the two so that you can actually define a conclusion. You could do it a couple different ways:

1) CO2 blanket on both, no splashing or shaking either. Add OO to one, and nothing to other (control). Use stir plated starter
2) Same as 1 but don’t use a stirplate (possibly just try direct pitching a vial)
3) CO2 blanket on both, splash and shake one and do nothing but add OO to other. Use stir plated starter
4) Same as 3 but don’t use a stirplate (again, direct pitch possibly)

To me each of these experiments would tell a chapter but the whole story would not be told. On a conceptual level it feels like number 1 would be the first logical step to say whether the OO is better than nothing at all. But then I still think you have to go through the rest of the progression to tell whether it makes any difference.

Throw in additional variables such as O2 stones, repitching used yeast, dry yeast, and other factors such as long term storage effects and head retention and you could easily surpass your 200 gallon per year legal limit as a homebrewer!
 
kpr121 said:
What are you attempting to test? Whether the OO addition is the same as oxygenation or whether the OO gives you a better result than no oxygenation?

You have a lot of variables going on there. Seems like you need to pick one scenario out and make sure all the rest are equal between the two so that you can actually define a conclusion. You could do it a couple different ways:

1) CO2 blanket on both, no splashing or shaking either. Add OO to one, and nothing to other (control). Use stir plated starter
2) Same as 1 but don’t use a stirplate (possibly just try direct pitching a vial)
3) CO2 blanket on both, splash and shake one and do nothing but add OO to other. Use stir plated starter
4) Same as 3 but don’t use a stirplate (again, direct pitch possibly)

To me each of these experiments would tell a chapter but the whole story would not be told. On a conceptual level it feels like number 1 would be the first logical step to say whether the OO is better than nothing at all. But then I still think you have to go through the rest of the progression to tell whether it makes any difference.

Throw in additional variables such as O2 stones, repitching used yeast, dry yeast, and other factors such as long term storage effects and head retention and you could easily surpass your 200 gallon per year legal limit as a homebrewer!
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Agreed. I'll probably go with #3. However, this is more for me and my preferences. I don't really care to get too detailed/specific or scientific (Very anecdotal).

My goal here was to potentially find a way to produce rather large batches (10+ gallons) without a special aeration system. If I am convinced that the OO method works without having to go out of my way to aerate, then I will feel successful.

Now, if the beer has a significant change in flavor/aroma (Desirable or not), I will at least have first hand experience of the differentiation of results for OO and Aeration.

I chose a hef as my first beer for this test due to the fact that the esters and character of the yeast are so dependent on the environment you give it (Specifically with Wyeast 3068).

If I were to have chosen US-05 / Chico, I would expect the yeast to be far more tolerent and affect the outcome of flavor/esters to a lesser degree.

Does that make sense? :confused:
 
Actually, it doesn't make sense to me. If I was going to do it, I'd choose a really neutral yeast so it wouldn't interfere with what I was testing.
 

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