Heated stir plate.

I have seen such things advertised for sale. I do not think mine was intended to be one but just is one now as a result of being old. So my plate is warm and my erlemeyer flask and its contents were warm.

It looks like it brought the starter to krausen within 15 hours. I am looking to make a larger starter than I have a container for so I poured off a liter of starter and added another liter and a half to the erlemeyer. But now I am afraid to cook my starter. So i am running it at 5 minute intervals when i can. Knowing that will aerate the starter without getting it too warm.

My question is should i toss the first batch of starter that was heat stirred?
Would a warmer agressive temperature negatively affect a starter?
How warm is too warm?

This is a WLP Edinburgh Yeast BTW.

What temperature is it?

devilishprune said:

What temperature is it?

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Don't know but it was warm to the touch. I had to work this evening so I hung out around the house to let the starter finish, boil some more wort, cool it then pull off a liter of wort and pour in 1.25 liters. The erlmeyer flask was warm to the touch but I had to run to work.

When I felt the flask it was warm to the touch. When I got home tonight 4-5 hours later the flask was already at high krausen. The liter removed from the flask and stored in the fridge had a lot of yeast at the bottom of the mason jar. Something happened that produced a lot of yeast fast, but is the yeast any good?

I poured some tap water into a jar to test "warm to the touch" I am going to have to guess it is at least 85 degrees.

Unless it smells or tastes worse than a starter usually tastes, then I wouldn't worry about it. I had a starter that went at too high of a temperature and it smelled seriously like sulfur so I didn't use it.

Warm to the touch is probably too warm in any case. Do you have something that would allow you to separate the flask from the plate like a half inch or so so that some of the heat could dissipate a bit before it got to the flask?

Its a stir plate designed for photography use or other chemistry uses. I know because my dad was big into photography. I am talking before digital cameras and I hate to say it, but the older silver process is why pictures on that process will last hundreds of years. Back on topic, the stir plates were heated to help dissolve the chemicals into solution. If you open the stir plate up, with it unplugged of course, you should be able to disable the heating element just by sniping the wire to the element. Just make sure you put some electrical tape on the cut ends so you do not create a short circuit unintentionally.

I was trying to get my mom to find my dad's old stir plates but no luck, so I made my own. But one day I will make it back to the east coast to visit and I will look my self. My dad's stuff was high quality, well made to servive rough service in a lab, good stuff....

Thanks for the info. I too am in to photography from before digital but never had my own lab. This is not a heated stir plate. It is just an old one that is getting warm. The top plate is raised above the rest of the whole plate by copper spacers. I will try to replace those with some type of plastic ones. That should keep the heat from working its way into the starter.

I smelled it and detected no sulphur. I have yet to taste a starter. Today's taste will be a first. We'll see how it smells and tastes.