OLIVE OIL EXPERIMENT

[Pierre le Grand]

Has anyone tried adding olive oil to their starter yet? After reading it in the May/June "Brew" I'm pumped about olive oil. Who thinks of these things first?! Olive oil...Ha!

I'm doing a high gravity oatmeal stout - and thought I would try 5 gallons with normal aeration, and five gallons without aeration/with a drop of olive oil in the starter.


Anyone beat me to the experiment?

[andyp]

I've added a drop to my starters...what the hell...might help and can't hurt...any residual oil is going to float on top and get poured off when I decant the supernatant.

[yellowthere]

I don't use it for starters, but I add one drop in the wort, mix and pour. It works fine. Great fermentation, no head loss (although opinions may vary). I like it. One less piece of equipment that I have to clean/buy.

[Brant]

sorry to drag back, but I recently added olive oil to a starter I did. I did a 2L starter with the wyeat 1056. I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil. complete overkill but I didnt care. After about 3 hours there was a steady stream of bubbles. After 9 hours it was almost coming out of the flask. One interesting note is that the layer of oil reduced to about 1/4 of what it started at by the time I pitched it. I threw this into my wort and didnt bother aerating with the usual O2. Fermentation took off about about 10 hours in a 1.056 American IPA. I'm not worried about head retention because the beer was foaming into the blow off tube. I'm thinking I might continue to do this so that Im not over oxidizing the wort aside from the oxygen the yeast use/need.

[Cosmic Charlie]

I haven't done an experiment with two batches - but I'll post my anecdotal evidence in case anyone is interested. I learned of this right when I ventured into high-gravity brewing. I made an Old Ale with an OG = 1.100. I pitched two rehydrated packs of S-04 and one tiny drop of OO in the wort. I kept fermentation temps around 65F. After four days, the SG was 1.032, and it finished at 1.028. I made the batch with a mini-mash, adding 8 lbs of LME and 1/2 lb of treacle, which might explain the somewhat high FG.

I am happy enough with this to continue to add a drop to the wort before pitching. I just bottled this batch, so I don't really know how it turned out.

[Mylo]

I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil. complete overkill but I didnt care.

That's WAY too much. I heard that even a drop in five gallons is too much.


Mylo

[Brant]

I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil. complete overkill but I didnt care.

That's WAY too much. I heard that even a drop in five gallons is too much.


Mylo

Yea I even thought of the original post explaining the math behind it when I was adding it. Im not too worried either way. It's going strong.

[bj_braggot]

I did it over on the green board. Used very little olive oil mixed into a strong solution of citric acid. Added some of that and I had a strong ferment that finished at a lower gravity than expected 1.005 of an AG English Mild SG 1.041 with Nottinghams Yeast. Seems this is what the common result is for olive oil addition.

I pitched a low gravity dark braggot (1.054 52% honey AG dark grains and a little 2 row) onto the yeast cake and it exploded with gobs of thick blowoff. I used no nutrients in the braggot. It also finished at a lower gravity than expected. 1.002

Bob