How bad is it that my stir bar is currently sitting at the bottom of my freshly filled fermentor? First time to ever do a starter and completely forgot about the little stir bar. First time kegging problems and now this has driven me to a second 90 min IPA…maybe a third.
I’d call it par for the course. Pot a sticky note on your fermentor to remind you not to throw out the stirbar with the trub.
The only downside is forgetting it when you go to dump your fermenter and lose your stir bar. Peace.
No biggie. Done it many times. Get a strong magnet for the next brewday. Simply attach the magnet to the flask and pour. And yes, don’t forget that it’s in the fermenter.
+1 I forget and do it all the time. I have three on hand so it doesn’t stall production.
This. But you should also be able to use that strong magnet to walk the stir bar up the side of your fermenter and retrieve at any time.
+1. This works.
Magnet is the way to go. I figured that out after I dumped a starter and flushed a stir bar. I did not attempt to retrieve that one.
No worries in letting the bar sit through fermentation. It will not harm anything just don’t forget it.
I did the magnet once and forgot to hold it. There wasn’t enough friction so both magnet and stir bar went into the fermenter as I poured. Worried me a bit since magnet was not sanitized.
There are small magnets sometimes referred to as super magnets that work very well for stir bars. I can not only let go of my magnet, but can fill my flask with water and shake it without either losing hold.
After building a stir plate, my first stir bar ended up in the bucket. No problem, I thought, I knew it was clean and had been sanitized. So bottling day came and went well, as did clean up. And then after dinner I flipped on the garbage disposal and was met by quite a racket… stir bar #1, all beat to hell.
When I built my stir plate, I bought a package of 6 rare earth magnets, and now the little pill bottle with the remaining 5 lives in my brew-day box so it’s easy to remember to use one to capture stir bar #2 before pitching.
Oh, and the beer was just fine. As long as you cleaned and sanitized, you’ll be fine.