I just heard it last week on Basic Brewing radio...It was in the NHC follow up. Shocked the crap out of me when I heard it...
It was during the I-view with Chris White from White Labs.
Considering he makes the yeasts, methinks he'd know.
July 3, 2008 - NHC Wrapup Pt. 1
Steve joins James as they begin their collection of interviews gathered from experts at the National Homebrewers Conference in Cincinnati. This week: Dave Wills, Michael Ferguson and Chris White.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr07-03-08nhcwrapup01.mp3
It's about 3/4's of the way into the I-view...
Considering he says that we need 10-12 PPM's of oxygen for good fermentation
and vigorous shaking is only good for 2 ppm's, hitting a stuck fermentation @
under 10-12 hours with a minute of O2 may be may be just the thing. Especially for really big beers.
New info comes out all the time...Even John Palmer has gone back on what he wrote about IBU's after going to a confrence on hops....And a lot of the stuff we come to believe as 'conventional wisdom' is wrong anyway, yet we perpetuate it...
It was a good discussion here;
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/adding-oxygen-during-fermentation-71456/
I'm all for a post yeast pitch blast of O2....but BEFORE it begins to turn into real beer......within the first 12 hours...but with already a 20 point drop in gravity, I still maintain that you don't want too much o2 exposure now...
Flyguy gives a good elaboration on it...
This is an accepted practice, but specific to high gravity beers and only before active fermentation begins (typically within the first 12 to 18 hours). When the yeast are still in their lag/growth phase, they need a lot of oxygen, and it is hard to get enough into solution in a high gravity brew, even with an oxygenation setup. But if you add it in two 'doses' you can get a lot more into solution. Since the yeast are are actively metabolizing O2 in the lag and growth phase, all of that O2 will get scavenged quickly, provided you do it before they hit active fermentation. If timed correctly, there is little worry of oxidation.