I’m a bit of a gear head. When I started all-grain brewing in 2009 I got any piece of gear that I thought I needed, which included three stir plates. I didn’t really need three stir plates at the time because I was only running one 1 liter starter for 5 gallon batches. But it didn’t take long until I upped my game to 10 gallon batches and two 1 liter starters.
My procedure was to pitch the yeast in the sanitized starter, put it on the stir plate, and wait until it finished out. This sometimes involved putting an aluminum pie pan under the flask to catch overflow from the too active starter.
At some point I started putting the starters on the stir plate for 6 hours until they became active, and then turning the stir plate off. At that point I would periodically swirl the flask manually until activity was subsiding, and then put it back on the stir plate until it was done.
These days I pitch the yeast in the starters, put them on the stir plate for one hour, and then swirl the flasks at about one hour intervals until activity subsides. I still put the starters on the stir plates when they are almost done, but I am no longer convinced that a stir plate is a necessary piece of equipment. Do they finish the starter faster? Yes. Are there any negatives to using a stir plate? Only if you object to cleaning up a mess on the bench where the starter krausened over.
I use mostly WLP-001, 007, 029 and Bell’s House Yeast, and my experience has held true with these plus numerous others I have used over the years. If your experience is different I would like to know about it.
Note: I run 1L starters in 2L flasks, and 500 ml starters in 1L flasks. 2X volume is not enough to keep an active starter from kruasening over.
I use a well oversized flask (nominal volume =/>2x actual starter volume) for the starter, and Fermcap. The Fermcap is expended somewhere along the way, but there is still very little foam even at late stages. I leave the stir plate running the whole time to keep gas exchange going – getting CO2 out is beneficial even after O2 uptake is irrelevant – and to keep the yeast in suspension and in maximum contact with the medium. I’m mostly a lager guy, so that may make a difference. But I can’t recall ever having problems with this protocol and ale yeast either.
I haven’t used a stir plate in over 5 years. I don’t even know where mine is any more. I’ve discovered it’s unnecessary for me to use one. And ya know what…it’s made absolutely no difference in the quality of my beer.
I do vitality starter with 600-750 ml wort 4-5 hours before pitching. I use a stir plate, just because I have one and used to using it. If I was to advise someone new, I would find something else to spend your money on first.
Once I read about the Shaken Not Stirred (SNS) method on this forum my stir plate has sat unused. It has been a year or more and as Denny says It has not made a difference in my beer.
That’s interesting. My normal starter for a 5 gallon batch is a half gallon of liquid in a one gallon glass jug. I don’t recall ever having a blow-off with a starter. I wonder if the shape of the flask could be part of the cause. Being that the sides are angled rather than straight.
I normally use a stir plate for starters. I occasionally use the SNS method, but I find it simpler to just put the starter on a stir plate rather than shaking it. Both methods work perfectly fine as far as results are concerned. Although I always use a stir plate for my big starters. Most of the meads I make are 1/2 barrel batches. For these I usually do a 2 gallon starter in a 3 gallon carboy. It’s really cool to see those turning on a Maelstrom.
I’ve never used a stir plate, don’t own one, and don’t want one. I try to use dried yeast as often as possible, and then starters are totally unnecessary. And… I’m a minimalist anyway. Minimum equipment, minimum expenses, maximum shortcuts, that’s me. And I get away with it. I recognize that this is not the norm. But hell I’m still making pretty darn good beer… and mead, and cider. Don’t get me wrong… I do still tend to overthink a lot of topics… it’s just, how to spend as much or more money than all my friends is NOT a goal of mine. If I’m macho about anything, it’s about how NOT macho I am.
Need for one aside, I’m curious about why Charlie gets all this foam-over. One of the effects of a stir plate is to keep knocking froth down as it forms. The one and only time I ever remember having a starter/propagation foam over was without a stir plate. Just wondering. [emoji848]
I get exactly the opposite effect. I always figured that stirring causes the yeast to be more active and make more krausen. The starters are 100g of light dry DME diluted to 1L with tap water, so they’re not high gravity.
The vessels are erlenmeyer flasks at 2X volume, i.e. a 2L flask for a 1L starter.
Between dry yeast and slurry, I rarely make starters anymore. When I do, I usually use a stir-plate because it saves time (especially with old/expired liquid yeast). That said, I use a stir-plate maybe once every 20 batches.
I usually put a starter on a stir plate the night before I brew because I can’t shake or stir when I’m sleeping. Once I’m up the next morning, I’ll take it off the stir plate and begin the shaking and stirring. So I guess my method is SP&SnS. When I didn’t put in on the stir plate overnight, and it just sat there for hours, I had a volcano with the first SnS in the morning. It was fine after that.
I want my brews to start off at the exact post-boil gravity, so the first thing I do after flame-out is to put 1L of cooled wort in each decanted starter, and put them back on the stir plates. When I’m done futzing around with cooling and racking the wort into the fermentors then I oxygenate the wort and pitch the reconstituted starters. I usually have significant fermentation activity 3 or 4 hours later, so I’m going to stick with this system until something better comes along.
There might not typically be much of an advantage to a stir plate (which I use) because yeast we get now is so much better/healthier than in the bad ol’ days, but is there some advantage to NOT using a stir-plate? I made one out of a computer fan that cost me nothing and used it with a 64oz growler.
My understanding is that stir plates greatly increase the growth-rate of cells, and as I’m typically growing up cultures from frozen to 10 gallon batches it’s something I’m worried about.
