Olive oil?

[brewpood]

I decided to add some more concentrated wort to my fermenting batch on day 2 to raise the ABV a little after missing the OG mark with my partial mash. Yeast is WL 570, and fermentation had chugged along the first day, then dropped off so that it was barely noticeable. I put a drop of olive oil in the boiling wort addition. No visible activity today, but the bucket smells strongly of fermenting beer.

Is she going to blow, captain?

Thanks!

 

[brewpood]

No explosions after 2 days (and very little visible activity), so I guess, knock wood, everything is OK.

 

[KepowOb]

Just out of curiosity as I've never heard of it before... but what was the olive oil for?

 

[freisste]

I wondered too. I assume it is poorman's Fermcap? Not sure.

 

[ResumeMan]

So this is a fairly inexpert answer but in a nutshell...

The reason you want to aerate wort is that the yeast use the oxygen during the growth phase to develop a component (is it a lipid?) of cell walls. So having ample oxygen is critical to ensure adequate yeast growth. Except...

...Except there is a component of olive oil that is basically the same as what the yeast use the oxygen to make. So there have been some experiments in using small additions of olive oil in lieu of adding oxygen. I think results have been mixed.

OP of course can clarify where he's coming from here, but I'm guessing that the idea is that since he's adding a bunch more fermentables after fermentation has slowed, he wants to goose the amounts of (lipids?) in there. But he obviously doesn't want to oxidize his beer so he's adding the component semi-directly instead.

Am I on the right track?

 

[jro238]

Yeast cell walls are made up primarily of polysaccharides. I believe you are thinking of cell membranes which are primarily made up of lipids.

I haven't heard of this olive oil idea before. My first thought was "there goes the head"

EDIT: Upon a little further searching...
"The basic concept is that since yeast uses an oxygen atom to pull a hydrogen away from an 18 carbon chain unsaturated fatty acid to make a monounsaturated fatty acid chain to help it grow, you could simply provide an 18 carbon monounsaturated fatty acid and it would be able to use that." (New Belgium Brewing Company) Linoleic acid (high in olive oil) is one such fatty acid.

HOWEVER...
"To translate that into a 5 gallon size, you would need to measure about 0.0000833mL of olive oil."

A drop of olive oil is far more than that so you might end up with some head retention issues.

 

[ResumeMan]

Yeah at least on my view of this thread there's a bunch of threads down at the "similar threads" section below about this.

Now having said that, if as it appears, the fermentation is in full swing and/or winding down, just adding more fermentables shouldn't either cause or require more yeast growth, right? That is, at this point there should be more than enough yeast in the beer already to attack the new sugars, right?

 

[jro238]

Yeah at least on my view of this thread there's a bunch of threads down at the "similar threads" section below about this.

Now having said that, if as it appears, the fermentation is in full swing and/or winding down, just adding more fermentables shouldn't either cause or require more yeast growth, right? That is, at this point there should be more than enough yeast in the beer already to attack the new sugars, right?

Good call on the similar threads...I didn't even think about scrolling down there

Since it sounds like OP added these fermentables within a day or so of initial fermentation starting I think you're right about yeast reproduction. There would probably be some but I doubt it would be that significant.

 

[brewpood]

Yes, ResumeMan, that's what I was thinking when I added the OO. I was also concerned that, at that point, the airlock had shown a lot of activity for only one day and then stopped, so I thought I hadn't aerated enough. This was my attempt to get the yeast going again. But it turns out they were quietly working and the batch has reached final gravity. I am sorry to think this batch will have head retention issues, but it tastes great. Next time I'll try patience instead of olive oil.

 

[Beergazzi]

I remember seeing on here somewhere, if using OO, to simply stick a pin into/out of the OO, and the trace that clings to the pin is enough.

Id like to try it one day, but it seems more downside than upside for my brewing needs.

 

[TheZymurgist]

I'm pretty sure New Belgium abandoned this after a while, but i could be wrong.

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

According to this, there is evidence that some breweries in Belgium use Olive oil. http://brewcrazy.com/brewing-beer-with-olive-oil-article/

 

[Wynne-R]

This is something I have done many times before. Twice I have done identical batches side by side. The way to do it is one or two drops in the starter.

- The toothpick thing is based on a math error, it’s more like a drop with five gallon batches.

- it doesn’t do anything to the head. How much oil do you suppose is in hops?

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Cool, did you see a difference with Olive oil? Good point about hop oils.