Question

A stir plate is wonderful while making a stater plate but why hasnt anyone tried brewing on carboys using a stir bar and a stir plate below ? I know commercial breweries have a sort of blending bar in their brewing equipment so why not do the same at the homebrew level ?

I think some do that, if your stir plate is big enough, powerful enough and you are stepping up your starter enough times to make a really big starter. I know I've seen folks do it with 3 gallon carboys. They then pour off the 'beer' and pitch the yeast.

Pappers_ said:

I think some do that, if your stir plate is big enough, powerful enough and you are stepping up your starter enough times to make a really big starter. I know I've seen folks do it with 3 gallon carboys. They then pour off the 'beer' and pitch the yeast.

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It must be a really nice way of making clean tasting beer in a shorter time and with a crisper taste... I think i will try to make a stir apparatus soon to resemble what commercial breweries but on a 5 gallon scale ....I've noticed that as long as you are moving the wort it never blows over so maybe a wine wisk on a small motor with an airlock might work beautiful .

Oh I misread your post - I thought you were talking about making starters in carboys. I don't know of anyone using a stirplate for brewing a batch.

you're trying to introduce oxygen throughout fermentation? brewers want the yeast to go anoxic after the growth phase and focus on anaerobic fermentation.

^^^
I thought that too, at first, but then you're in the fermenter where there should be very little O2 once the CO2 of fermentation has displaced it out through the airlock.

dinnerstick said:

you're trying to introduce oxygen throughout fermentation? brewers want the yeast to go anoxic after the growth phase and focus on anaerobic fermentation.

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Anoxic...really ....Then maybe I'm misunderstanding something because I've seen commercial brew kettle with something that resembles a stir paddle at low speed . This is why i was wondering why homebrewers weren't trying to mimic that process

Big_Cat said:

Then maybe I'm misunderstanding something because I've seen commercial brew kettle with something that resembles a stir paddle at low speed .

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You may be thinking of the large mash tuns used in breweries.

aryoung1980 said:

You may be thinking of the large mash tuns used in breweries.

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Maybe that's where i misunderstood what it was.

aryoung1980 said:

You may be thinking of the large mash tuns used in breweries.

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Big_Cat said:

Maybe that's where i misunderstood what it was.

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The mixer type hardware is typically only found in the mash tun. Sometimes in the boil kettle too, but not as often. The motorized mixing of the large mash tun is almost required due to the size of the mash tun they use. Would you be able to mix a 1000L+ mash tun with a paddle? You might, with a few extra people, and some long paddles. But, IMO, it would get pretty old, pretty fast.

Golddiggie said:

The mixer type hardware is typically only found in the mash tun. Sometimes in the boil kettle too, but not as often. The motorized mixing of the large mash tun is almost required due to the size of the mash tun they use. Would you be able to mix a 1000L+ mash tun with a paddle? You might, with a few extra people, and some long paddles. But, IMO, it would get pretty old, pretty fast.

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I agree... I don't know why i thought it was part of the fermentation process