Using Evoo In Yeast Starters Instead Of Aeration

[DJR]

Some interesting stuff from http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=83606

Using Extra virgin olive oil in either the yeast starter or in the wort seems to remove so much need to aerate the yeast - as olive oil provides fatty acids for the yeast to multiply with.

Might be worth a go for big beers needing lots of aeration!

I ended up doing 14 days at room temperature, then crash cooled for 5 and transferred to the keg on Friday. The gravity for the aerated and OO'd beers both dropped from 1.049 to 1.013. I put both kegs under 25psi pressure for about 48 hours and then gave them a try yesterday. They were both partially carbed, and poured with a ton of foam as the CO2 isn't completely absorbed yet. There's definitely no head retention problem in either beer right now - both stayed foamy for a while. Actually the OO beer foam faded a bit slower, but I'm waiting until the carbonation is what I consider finished before I time them. Tastewise, they were exactly the same to me. I presented both to my wife, and told her nothing other than taste both of these. Then I asked her which one she liked better and she pointed to the one made with olive oil. I was a little surprised by her sureness. Then she said "wait, are they the same beer" and I explained the difference. I'll probably do an initial blinded triangle test in about a week or so.

View attachment OliveOil.pdf

 

[Steve Lacey]

I stumbled across this stuff just last week and it has me intrigued. Two critical points to bear out:

1. The olive oil is added to stored yeast some time prior to pitching, not to wort.
2. Only very small amounts of olive oil are needed. Two fifthes of five eigths of not very much at all.

Steve

 

[ozpowell]

The latest issue of BYO (Zymurgy? I forget :huh also has an article on this - very interesting. My concern (which I haven't seen addressed properly yet) is around sanitization of the oil because, as I understand the procedure, the oil is added to the cooled wort. Surely bugs live in oil....

Also, the article I read suggested using a flame-sterilized piece of wire to measure the small fraction of a millilitre required to treat a 20L batch - I wonder how accurate you actually have to be? Surely adding 1 drop of oil isn't going to have a drastic effect on head-retention? Or is adding too much oil detrimental in other ways?

The article indicated that several US micros are already trialing this technique.

Cheers,
Michael.

 

[Sammus]

Anyone done any further testing on this? Sounds interesting.