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Apparently, New Belgium is doing this. Also, for a typical five gallon homebrew batch, it is said that if you DIPPED A PIN in olive oil, shook it off, it would still contain hundreds of times the necessary amounts of the compounds that yeast need during the aerobic stage of fermentation. Does anyone have an answer of whether this works?

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  • Can you share a link with more information about this? I'm skeptical, but I'd like to read more. – Jordan Aug 14 '12 at 20:18
  • Wow. Interesting. Aeration is the most annoying part of brew day for me, so this looks like a great alternative. Thanks! – bk0 Aug 15 '12 at 14:00
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It seems that it was used at New Belgium primarily for yeast storage between brews, not fermentation. AFAIK, New Belgium stopped doing it after a short trial (one batch of Fat Tire) when they found it led to premature staling and off flavors. I know of only one controlled test of it on the homebrew level and the tasters in a blind triangle tasting preferred the beer made with O2 instead of OO. The results are here..

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  • +1 I don't care who ya are, that's a good answer right there. – hartski Aug 15 '12 at 16:26
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    Whitelabs recently did some experimenting at homebrew scale, theres no data on the article but, they say fermentation finished about the same. Here's the link: yeastbuddy.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/… – Gustavo Del Castillo Aug 15 '12 at 18:01
  • you da man denny! Also, thanks for the WL link. If there is one person I trust for yeast, it is Chris White. – Pietro Aug 15 '12 at 18:07
  • The test you link to is interesting as a starting point, but hardly conclusive. It was a very small sample size (n=12) and not super well controlled or blinded (only one batch used, colored cups were used without randomizing contents, etc.). I'd love to see an experiment like this carried out on a larger scale though! – pjreddie Mar 12 '13 at 23:48
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    In case anyone is still reading this, I recently spoke to Grady Hull about this for inclusion in a book I'm working on. In a nutshell, he said that it was used for yeast storage, not propagation or fermentation. They found it produced off flavors and did not lengthen the shelf life of the beer. They have styopped using the method. – Denny Conn Dec 19 '13 at 16:19
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People have used olive oil with some success, see some conversations here or here. The general consensus is that it works, but most seem to agree that there isn't much point of doing it on the pico scale unless you like to experiment.

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