olive oil = crazy starter

[Mylo]

Alright. I'm skeptical. I say this because I was preparing a starter in my 2L flask recently and got very tired of turning off the burner every 10 seconds because it was going to boil over. After kicking myself for never having purchased a little anti-foam control from B3, I decided on putting a drop of olive oil in there with hopes of breaking some of the surface tension and preventing another boil over. I did not see anything on my stir plate that resembled your picture. (it also didn't do much for foam control, either...)

I'd be interested in hearing your repeated results.


Mylo

[jyoung]

me too I can only brew so much due to lack of fermentation carboys, but I am thinking of just doing some starters and testing gravities with them. to make my starters I do a small all-grain batch then put the wort into quart mason jars then pressure can them. when I want to make a starter I just open the jars and pour into flask, no boil over any more.

[jyoung]

brewed 10 gal of jamils Black Widow Porter from classic styles and pitched last night at 8:30PM. At 7:00AM this morning they both are showing activity but the non-olive oil starter carboy is bubbling about twice as much as the olive oil starter. Hmmm?

[mfischer2]

I'm not sure this is a good experiment. The olive oil can simply make it more bubbly rather than really helping in any capacity. I could get bubbles in my starter by adding soap too, doesn't mean that it helps.

Now, I've read that the olive oil does help, so I'm not saying that, just that you can't go in looks alone.

[jyoung]

yeah I agree, I was hoping for some obviously stronger fermentation. I put on my 1 inch blow off tube and hoped.