[Saccharomyces]

I used yeast nutrient when I first started, but stopped using it for anything culturing media after moving to all-grain brewing. I stopped using it for culturing media (shortly thereafter). I have personally have never seen the need for yeast nutrient in a all-grain wort.  There is more than nitrogen available in an all malt wort, even in 20% adjunct worts.  The other major component of yeast nutrient blends is a yeast extract.  That is helpful if one is underpitching.

Nail polish is ethyl acetate.  It is almost always the result of fermentation temperate being too high during the exponential growth period in home brewing. If you want to understand what is going on better, you should read two of my blog entries.

Yeast Cultures are Like Nuclear Weapons (https://www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/saccharomyces/yeast-cultures-are-nuclear-weapons)

Have You Seen Ester (https://www.experimentalbrew.com/blogs/saccharomyces/have-you-seen-ester)

[mabrungard]

The need for yeast nutrient is largely dependent upon your water source and its quality.  The main potential deficiency that yeast nutrient addresses is zinc deficiency.  Malt does not provide enough zinc to make up for water sources that are deficient.  Deficient water sources are RO water, distilled water, and potentially any source that hasn't had much ground contact such as collected rainwater or mountain runoff. 

There was a mention of zinc sulfate previously in this thread and it is almost a good alternative.  Its problem is that the dosage rate with that salt is exceedingly low.  You probably couldn't accurately measure and dose zinc sulfate in its dry form (for a typical homebrew batch), but you could probably mix up a calculated solution and figure out how much of that will be needed in your batch size. 

I use RO water for brewing and I feel that my use of Wyeast yeast nutrient does provide a small improvement to the beer fermentation performance, although I haven't conducted scientific trials to confirm.  I figure it's insurance.     

[Lazy Ant Brewing]

I treat my brewing water per Martin's spread sheet, use dry yeast exclusively without any yeast nutrient, and have never had a problem.  Beer is always good.

[allenhuerta]

I treat my brewing water per Martin's spread sheet, use dry yeast exclusively without any yeast nutrient, and have never had a problem.  Beer is always good.

I'm sorry, I had to

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[goose]

Still a pretty inexperienced home brewer and I've yet to see much of  a difference between adding a nutrient or not. I think I've got bigger problems to sort out first before I start pumping my wort full of performance enhancers 

You know, like proper pitching rate and temperature control. One day I hope have a beer that doesn't immediately smell like nail polish...

OTOH, nutrient is so inexpensive and easy I look at it as cheap insurance.

I agree with Denny on this.  It's cheap insurance.  I even add a pinch of yeast nutrient to my starter wort.  Whether it is necessary or not, IDK.  But it is cheap insurance and yeast nutrient is very inexpensive.

[denny]

Still a pretty inexperienced home brewer and I've yet to see much of  a difference between adding a nutrient or not. I think I've got bigger problems to sort out first before I start pumping my wort full of performance enhancers 

You know, like proper pitching rate and temperature control. One day I hope have a beer that doesn't immediately smell like nail polish...

OTOH, nutrient is so inexpensive and easy I look at it as cheap insurance.

I agree with Denny on this.  It's cheap insurance.  I even add a pinch of yeast nutrient to my starter wort.  Whether it is necessary or not, IDK.  But it is cheap insurance and yeast nutrient is very inexpensive.

IMO, it's even more important in starters than in the kettle.