My three starters are looking good today after a big step up last night. There was nice fermentation activity already this morning. The Belgian Ale yeast seems to be the most active. I think it is really loving the warm weather we have been having. The Belgian is the starter in the erlenmyer flask, you can see the nice layer of yeast that has developed in it already. This should really kick of the IPA when it gets pitched in a couple of days.
I really need to get a stirplate, I constructed one following the plans in Zymurgy a few years ago but it has never worked right. Either my magnets aren't strong enough or my RPM's are too high because the stir bar always ends up spinning off to the side and not working properly. One of these days I'll either have to figure out how to get it working properly or buy one for myself. I've been pretty happy with how my starters work out without using a stirplate so I'm not in any rush.
My next priority is pouring some more plates for myself so I can add to the collection and maybe making some slants as well.
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A stirplate does help accellerate those step-ups in starter size. There is some chatter that it may also help drive off CO2 to avoid CO2 toxicity to the yeasts. Dunno.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you're getting thrown bars it can be helpful to try several different sizes/shapes of stirbars. I find that certain flasks like certain sizes. I can put one size in and spin for days with no throw, and other sizes throw the bar by the time I turn around to walk off.
I have an old lab 'plate and one I built for free out of a PC fan. Both work fine. The fan-based one generates less heat. The lab one has built in speed control. It was $15 (shipped) off eBay, btw.