diff --git a/lib/jekyll/post.rb b/lib/jekyll/post.rb
index 9ad25399..98ad1c65 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/post.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/post.rb
@@ -255,7 +255,9 @@ module Jekyll
         "page" => self.to_liquid(EXCERPT_ATTRIBUTES_FOR_LIQUID)
       }.deep_merge(site_payload)
 
-      self.extracted_excerpt.do_layout(payload, {})
+      if generate_excerpt?
+        self.extracted_excerpt.do_layout(payload, {})
+      end
 
       do_layout(payload.merge({"page" => self.to_liquid}), layouts)
     end
@@ -309,7 +311,15 @@ module Jekyll
     protected
 
     def extract_excerpt
-      Jekyll::Excerpt.new(self)
+      if generate_excerpt?
+        Jekyll::Excerpt.new(self)
+      else
+        ""
+      end
+    end
+
+    def generate_excerpt?
+      !(site.config['excerpt_separator'].to_s.empty?)
     end
   end
 end
diff --git a/site/_config.yml b/site/_config.yml
index ac93b762..91d89f84 100644
--- a/site/_config.yml
+++ b/site/_config.yml
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ pygments: true
 relative_permalinks: false
 gauges_id: 503c5af6613f5d0f19000027
 permalink: /news/:year/:month/:day/:title
+excerpt_separator: 
diff --git a/site/_posts/2013-07-24-jekyll-1-1-1-released.markdown b/site/_posts/2013-07-24-jekyll-1-1-1-released.markdown
index 54e40d86..67958712 100644
--- a/site/_posts/2013-07-24-jekyll-1-1-1-released.markdown
+++ b/site/_posts/2013-07-24-jekyll-1-1-1-released.markdown
@@ -27,5 +27,5 @@ See the [GitHub Release][] page for more a more detailed changelog for this rele
 {% endfor %}
 
 [GitHub Release]: https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/releases/tag/v1.1.1
-[gh-pages]: http://pages.github.com
+[gh_pages]: http://pages.github.com
 [v1_1_0]: https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/releases/tag/v1.1.0
diff --git a/site/docs/configuration.md b/site/docs/configuration.md
index 7a72394f..956433e8 100644
--- a/site/docs/configuration.md
+++ b/site/docs/configuration.md
@@ -236,7 +236,7 @@ before your site is served.
 
 Jekyll runs with the following configuration options by default. Unless
 alternative settings for these options are explicitly specified in the
-[[configuration]] file or on the command-line, Jekyll will run using these options.
+configuration file or on the command-line, Jekyll will run using these options.
 
 <div class="note warning">
   <h5>There are two unsupported kramdown options</h5>
diff --git a/site/docs/posts.md b/site/docs/posts.md
index ed048f10..3dc74710 100644
--- a/site/docs/posts.md
+++ b/site/docs/posts.md
@@ -133,7 +133,8 @@ posts:
 {% endhighlight %}
 
 If you don't like the automatically-generated post excerpt, it can be overridden by adding
-`excerpt` to your post's YAML front-matter.
+`excerpt` to your post's YAML front-matter. Completely disable it by setting
+your `excerpt_separator` to `""`.
 
 ## Highlighting code snippets
 
diff --git a/site/docs/troubleshooting.md b/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
index 8ac580e5..6ea19bd9 100644
--- a/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
+++ b/site/docs/troubleshooting.md
@@ -136,6 +136,14 @@ following error:
 '{{ "{{" }}' was not properly terminated with regexp: /\}\}/  (Liquid::SyntaxError)
 {% endhighlight %}
 
+### Excerpts
+
+Since v1.0.0, Jekyll has had automatically-generated post excerpts. Since
+v1.1.0, Jekyll also passes these excerpts through Liquid, which can cause
+strange errors where references don't exist or a tag hasn't been closed. If you
+run into these errors, try setting `excerpt_separator: ""` in your
+`_config.yml`, or set it to some nonsense string.
+
 <div class="note">
   <h5>Please report issues you encounter!</h5>
   <p>If you come across a bug, please <a href="https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/issues/new">create an issue</a> on GitHub describing the problem and any work-arounds you find so we can document it here for others.</p>
diff --git a/test/test_excerpt.rb b/test/test_excerpt.rb
index a72d1bd2..234d51ba 100644
--- a/test/test_excerpt.rb
+++ b/test/test_excerpt.rb
@@ -10,6 +10,22 @@ class TestExcerpt < Test::Unit::TestCase
     post.render(layouts, {"site" => {"posts" => []}})
   end
 
+  context "With extraction disabled" do
+    setup do
+      clear_dest
+      stub(Jekyll).configuration do
+        Jekyll::Configuration::DEFAULTS.merge({'excerpt_separator' => ''})
+      end
+      @site = Site.new(Jekyll.configuration)
+      @post = setup_post("2013-07-22-post-excerpt-with-layout.markdown")
+    end
+
+    should "not be generated" do
+      excerpt = @post.send(:extract_excerpt)
+      assert_equal true, excerpt.empty?
+    end
+  end
+
   context "An extracted excerpt" do
     setup do
       clear_dest