How to use a Stir Plate

To the OP,
I had a problem with my stirplate throwing my stir bar also, so what I did was put a very small o-ring onto the middle of my stir bar and now it spins on the o-ring. I'm just concerned on sanitation and the o-ring tearing up over time. I'll have to wait and see. I've seen stir bars with the ridge built in but i'm not sure if that will work the same as an o-ring, because the o-ring kinda makes the stir bar stick. But thats why I'm worried it will tear up over time with the friction. My stir bar is
2" because I plan to make 4L starters, so the size might have been an issue in throwing mine.

I have a Vortex start spin plate which works as designed. However on reading how easy it is to break a regular conical flask I bought a 1 liter Pyrex flask. It's problem is that it does not have a flat bottom, it is slightly concave. This makes it difficult to get the magnet centered. I find it best to put just enough water into the flask to cover its bottom. Then I slide the flask around horizontally while still on the stir plate to move the magnet to the center. Then when I add some wort I run it slowly down the side of the flask. Then I add the liquid yeast, in my case White Labs English Cider WLP775. As it was 6 weeks past its BB date I decided to reactivate it. I needed it in order to get my Double IPA fermenting again as it had stalled at 1.30 even after using two US Saf 5E dry yeast packs. In fact this seems to be the norm for my 1080 OG beers and going this route is my best effort to get closer to a 1010 FG.

8 1/2 year old thread. Awesome.