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extra large stir plate
I remember reading a post a while back about someone wanting to stir a complete batch of beer. A high gravity belgian style brew, that they thought keeping the yeast stirred up would help get it to attenuate fully. there now is a product to do this:
http://towercooler.com/index.php?option … ;Itemid=97
too pricey for me, and I don't do high gravity belgians, but thought I'd pass it along.
doh! etra was supposed to be extra, in the subject line
No thanks, I don't need my beer being continuously aerated while it ferments. I like it to taste like beer and not cardboard. Would be useful for big ass starters though.
I'll keep this in mind for when I start doing 100 gallon batches and need a huge starter 
FirePitBrew wrote:
No thanks, I don't need my beer being continuously aerated while it ferments. I like it to taste like beer and not cardboard. Would be useful for big ass starters though.
If it had started fermentation and the CO2 forced all the Oxygen out of the carboy, would it still be aerating the beer? Could this still skunk it? I could see if you left the stir rod on the bottom for after a month of fermentation you turned it on for a few min on low to kick up the cake on the bottom, but this device does seem like overkill...you could just stick a racking cane down in there and gently stir it up...
Well, here's the thing, you don't use an airlock when using a stirplate because you're welcoming the continuous aeration. You could use this plate after pitching your yeast and replace the foam stopper, tinfoil, etc with an airlock but how do you know when the growth phase and fermentation phase begins exactly?
Your theory, assuming you're using an airlock the entire time, that the air in the headspace will be turned from oxygen to CO2 is plausible but again, how do you know at what point your beer is no longer taking in oxygen?
And just for clarification, I believe the term you intended to use was oxidizing not skunking. Skunking is a process where UV light reacts with hop compounds resulting in, well, a "skunk" smell; ie: green bottled beer.
Perhaps I may have been rash but I see this as a risky product and unnecessary. Use an aquarium pump or better yet an O2 tank with diffusion stone, pitch a healthy yeast starter and you'll be fine.
Or buy one of these if you're brewing up 30 gallons of 1.100 barleywine and need a big starter. 
there was a recipe in BYO that called for a 4 gallon starter for a 5 gallon batch. I don't think that was with a stirplate though. at any rate, I'd just make a batch of beer and pitch on the yeast cake if I needed 4 gallon starter.
Even when you cover the a starter with foil, you're only mixing with the air that's in the flask already. You don't get a whole lot of extra air exchange with the outside air...otherwise you'd be getting contaminated starters more frequently as the dust in the air would make it in there too. I use foil on my starters, but its not because you get more air exchange. All the O2 that you need is already in the air space above the wort. The reason not to use an airlock is due to lowering the head-pressure. Foil lets more of the gases out than an airlock does...Even that I really doubt as being significant.
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