Stir plate for degassing?

Long story short, i tried to build a stir plate but it isnt working as well as i might hope (as in its not really working at all), and i'm debating just chucking the whole thing.

Has anyone else tried using a stir plate to degas? It should be a pretty easy way to agitate the wine to get CO2 out while still leaving the airlock on to keep things nice and sterile.

I know several guys use stir plates for yeast starters, so maybe someone who has a working stir plate can help me out while we are at it...? I cant seem to get my magnets to "catch" the stir bar. I think my fan is spinning up too quickly but i cant get it to start any slower. I may try a different fan, but i ran out of time tonight. I am using a pair of rare earth magnets for the plate and a bolt i screwed into a piece of vinyl tubing for the stir bar. My bar jiggles and makes a racket, but doesnt spin well.

Degassing takes a pretty good "stir". I think a stir plate is intended to gently stir the contents, not agitate them.

My plan was to attach my brake bleeder to the carboy while stirring. With my bleeder attached even a gentle swirl drops the vacuum quite a bit.

I suppose my main goal is simply to stir/agitate the wine while the airlock or vacuum is attached.

I put a hockey puck under the carboy and rock it while vacuuming.

I picked up one of those food vacuum sealer pumps at walmart..... Does a great job and easy to use.....

hey BobJ, not wanting to highjack here, but which one did you get and how did you hook it up to your carboy(s)? thanks,