Olive Oil + Yeast

[Baloonon]

This is a new one for me, but it's been around for a while.

In 2005 a paper was written by Grady Hull, affiliated with New Belgium
Brewery, testing the addition of very small amounts of olive oil to
promote yeast growth.

https://pdfslide.net/download/link/hull-olive-oil-thesis

This is a new test of the idea:

http://brulosophy.com/2020/01/27/impact-of-using-olive-oil-as-an-
alternative-to-wort-aeration-exbeeriment-results/

https://tinyurl.com/vp236bx

Surprisingly, both found notable effects in faster and more vigorous
fermentation, without a negative effect on flavor.

The amount of olive oil is very small -- the New Belgium experiment went
no higher than 1 mg per 25 billion cells of yeast. The home brewer
experiment pushed it all the way up to 8 ml for a dose of yeast.

Neither seemed to add enough fat to the beer to effect foam, although it
seems smart to use the least amount possible. Measuring out that small
of an amount of oil seems like it would be a challenge -- it may be
possible to make a rough estimate by taking a gram of oil, let it spread
it out over a flat surface, measure the area of the surface, and then
use that to get a rough idea of how much might coat the tip of a butter
knife.

For everyday brewing it is probably not worthwhile, but for yeasts which
sometimes have stuck fermentations it might be something to try.

[Tom Biasi]

That's interesting. I would be tempted to try it with an IPA. I wonder
if a taste could be perceived in lighter, low hopped beers.

[Denny Conn]

I did something no other homebrewer has done. I actually contacted Grady about this. He said he had never tested it for propagation, only storage. Even then it didn't work well. The whole story is in my book Experimental Homebrewing.

[Baloonon]

Cool, thanks for the detail. Have to admit I forgot about this and never
ended up trying it, and it sounds like it's not worth it.