Well, I broke down and purchased a used Lab Line 3520 orbital shaker today. If the shaker is in halfway decent operational shape, I will be happy because these things go for stupid amounts money on used lab equipment sites. The unit is in good cosmetic shape for its age. A review will follow after I receive the unit.
Very cool gadget, if you’re able can you take a few seconds of video with a flask? I would love to see it in action!
Do you need a baffled flask to get the full effect?
I’d love to see a comparison (both cell counts and actual fermentation performance) among starters made on a stir plate, an orbital shaker, and shaken by hand across a variety of yeast strains, but I guess that would be a serious labor of love for the experimenter.
Here is a really awesome YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMWYV49ME3o
I am mostly interested in performance between a well-shaken by hand starter and starter shaken on an orbital shaker.
The orbital shaker used at White Labs makes the 3520 look like a toy. I believe that I saw six 5L flasks on the shaker at the same time.
I plan to use my 2L and 5L media bottles on the shaker. A Fernbach flask (a.k.a. a squat baffled Erlenmeyer flask) can lead to excessive foaming. I personally do not fear the foam, but over foaming in a conical flask can be a problem.
I need to purchase a new cover glass for my hemocytometer. I have been putting the purchase off because a new cover glass for a Reichert Bright-Line hemocytometer costs more than a new Chinese hemocytometer.
Did you see the big one in back? 3-4 racks of 8-10 flasks apiece if memory serves.
A hemocytometer is used to perform yeast cell counts. The device is called a hemacytometer because it was originally designed to count blood cells.
I was only able to get a quick glance of the room.
Why couldnt an old turn table work with the flask just slightly off center?
Man, I bet you’ll be able to whip up some killer martinis! Bond style!
On 78 for sure. 33 1/3 probably not too bad.
I do not see why a turntable could not be pressed into duty if the orbit it not too large.
With that said, the orbit can be adjusted on some modern shakers. However, affordable and modern are mutually exclusive when talking about orbital shakers. It appears that $600.00 is the starting point for a new orbital shaker with modern features. Anything below this figure that is not pre-owned is junk. That’s a lot of money for a device that is a luxury, not a need.
Right, cheap cheap at a garage sale and adjustable by where you put it on the turn table. I’ll try to keep my eyes open for one.
That’s a cool “out of the box” idea. I look forward to seeing what you build. I had a Pioneer PL-1000 turntable that I gave away back in the late nineties. That turntable would have made a good platform for experimentation because the rotational speed was electronically controlled.
If the shaker continually aerates the starter, will you still pitch the entire thing rather than chilling and decanting the supernatant?
Neither a shaker, nor a stirrer continuously aerates a culture. Very little to no O2 enters a flask after a culture starts to produce CO2. CO2 heavier than air, and the culture is under positive pressure; therefore, air is not entering the flask.
With that said, I do not plan to use the shaker in continuous mode. I plan to experiment to see if there is a difference between a starter made with my method and one that is shaken for a period of time and left to incubate.
So the increased cell count from an unstirred to a stirred starter is entirely (or almost entirely) due to agitation of the yeast?
I have seen no professional-level peer-reviewed publication that proves that an agitated starter produces more viable cells than a well-aerated starter that is not agitated. Most of the home brewer tests compare a non-aerated starter to a stirred starter. If one were shake an Erlenmeyer flask like I do a media bottle, there would be wort all over the room. That’s why I use a screw cap media bottle. The best that one can do with an non-screw cap Erlenmeyer flask is a vigorous side-to-side rocking motion. That’s not well-shaken in my book.
With that said, I am not the only home brewer who has reached the conclusion that agitation with brewing yeast is overrated. I discovered that Steven Deeds was becoming skeptical of stir plate results around the same time that I started to believe that stir plates were modern snake oil. He recently published results of a test that he ran, which are linked below. I do not agree with all of his results, but I do agree that stir plates produce no more viable cells than a well-aerated starter that is not agitated.
