Olive oil in starter, anyone do it?

[jeepmarine]

Refering to the thesis writen by Grady Hull, for the New Belgium brewing company. Anyone know if New Belgium is using olive oil still? Any of you guys use instead of adding oxygen.
Has the BN crew ever talked about this topic, I have listened to most of the archives but never heard them mention it.

Brew strong,
Shad

[Sweater Hogans]

Check out the De Struisse show from 3-30-2008. Urbain talks about experimenting with it.

[Evan B]

i've done it a few times. can't say i noticed any difference really. i know in theory it's supposed to help build up stronger cell walls, or something like that.

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

BYO had an article about it a while back. Essentially, you stick a toothpick in the olive oil, shake it off, then shake it again on top of your starter to get an almost invisible drop of oil in the starter. It sounds suspiciously like homeopathy to me.


(Did you read the story about Zicam refuting charges that their homeopathic remedy causes olfactory damage by saying the ppb (parts per billion) level of zinc wasn't enough to cause any effect? But it has enough to cure your cold faster. )

Sorry.

I suppose in a commercial scale it would be worth doing, but I won't be trying it anytime soon.

[bashcraft]

I tried it before I got my oxygenation system. Oxygenation works much better and I can't tell any difference when I use both.

[jeepmarine]

Listened to the 1-11-09 sunday session, with Chris and Mike White of White labs. Great show, Chris siad that adding olive oil is a great source of sterols. Increased sterols = good fermentation. Sounds eaiser vith a wee bit of olive oil

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

Listened to the 1-11-09 sunday session, with Chris and Mike White of White labs. Great show, Chris siad that adding olive oil is a great source of sterols. Increased sterols = good fermentation. Sounds eaiser vith a wee bit of olive oil

My measuring cup doesn't have "wee bit" on it. Is that one drop? Half a drop? Again, it's probably easier to do on a larger scale than ours.

[Sent From My iPhone]

Very few of us have the ability to measure how much oxygen we're actually adding either. When I oxygenate I start counting to 60, lose track half way and then just say "Fuck it, close enough".

I'm waiting for Bug to say he's tried Olive oil before I try it