Beer Forum

Has anyone heard of adding rose oil to beer to speed up fermentation? I heard from another homebrewer that he adds it and it gives him faster fermentation and higher attenuation but I cannot find anything on the internet about how. All I have found so far is that rose oil is mostly phenylethyl alcohol which is actually a rose-like ester that is produced by yeast. I just don't see how adding an ester would get you higher attenuation and faster fermentation. Any ideas?

It's probably similar to adding olive oil. Wikipedia lists the common ingredients as

The most common chemical compounds present in rose oil are:
citronellol, geraniol, nerol, linalool, phenyl ethyl alcohol, farnesol, stearoptene, α-pinene, β-pinene, α-terpinene, limonene, p-cymene, camphene, β-caryophyllene, neral, citronellyl acetate, geranyl acetate, neryl acetate, eugenol, methyl eugenol, rose oxide, α-damascenone, β-damascenone, benzaldehyde, benzyl alcohol, rhodinyl acetate and phenyl ethyl formate.[2]

The first couple are lipids which may be the same pathway yeast use olive oil in their cell walls.

I followed up with the guy and it turns out he is using pure phenyl ethyl alcohol, which composes about 60% of rose oil. How would adding a fusel alcohol that is sometimes a byproduct of fermentation enhance fermentation?