Erlenmeyer Flask or Mason jar

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McMalty

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Seriously, the 2000ML flask is effin $40 at my LHBS. Is there any detriment to just using a half gallon mason jar thats a fraction of the cost?
 
No. The only advantage the flask gives the user is that it can be mixed with one hand during titration or mixing and the neck is thin so it can be easily clamped. None of which applies to homebrewing in general.
-Jefe-
 
No. The only advantage the flask gives the user is that it can be mixed with one hand during titration or mixing and the neck is thin so it can be easily clamped. None of which applies to homebrewing in general.
-Jefe-

That, and my flask is boiled right on the stove (NOT the mason jar!) and then can go right into a ice water bath for chilling!
 
Yooper said:
That, and my flask is boiled right on the stove (NOT the mason jar!) and then can go right into a ice water bath for chilling!

+1.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk
 
plus the flask has a large flat bottom which helps when using a stir-plate.
 
ok.....so, i gather that the flask is worth the cost.........if i'm going to brew more than a couple more times in my life...........which i'm pretty sure i am. thats kinda what everyone's getting at, right?
 
You might do a quick google search for 2000 ml erlenmeyer. They are half that cost online.
 
ebay + patience = $20 2L erlenmeyer flask...shipped :D

That's how I got mine since LHBS in good ole Texas requires a freakin DEA permit or some **** because of all the meth heads!

I tried using growlers, big mason jars, cider jugs, etc. Never found anything with a plat enough bottom to keep from throwing the stir bar either...only the flask worked on my stir plate.
 
I use 1 gallon jugs/carboys, I have a 1000ml flask and prefer the extra volume the jug offers.
 
Seriously, the 2000ML flask is effin $40 at my LHBS. Is there any detriment to just using a half gallon mason jar thats a fraction of the cost?

Wow im sorry i just got mine and a bung and s style airlock for 35 from my lhbs, and that was with nys tax.
 
All flasks are not created equal. It's like someone saying they paid $40,000 for a car and someone saying they paid $10,000 for a car. You can't make a decision until you have more information. I have two different flask's and the cheaper priced one is cheaper quality. Back to the OP question I now use a saucepan to boil my starter and pour into a flat bottom jug for the stir plate. I just got tired of watching the boil when using the flask. I really have my eye on the wife's cookie jar since the bottom is actually concave and the stir bar rides perfectly. Since it is one of the few NO you can't have it. I won' t take it, but I am keeping my eye out for a similar jar. I also use a 1 gallon pickle jar for starters. I also use it for making Sun tea.
 
All flasks are not created equal. It's like someone saying they paid $40,000 for a car and someone saying they paid $10,000 for a car. You can't make a decision until you have more information. I have two different flask's and the cheaper priced one is cheaper quality. Back to the OP question I now use a saucepan to boil my starter and pour into a flat bottom jug for the stir plate. I just got tired of watching the boil when using the flask. I really have my eye on the wife's cookie jar since the bottom is actually concave and the stir bar rides perfectly. Since it is one of the few NO you can't have it. I won' t take it, but I am keeping my eye out for a similar jar. I also use a 1 gallon pickle jar for starters. I also use it for making Sun tea.

There are a couple of good points here...I paid $20 for 1L flask at a shop that was clearly not borosilicate. My $20 ebay flask is Pyrex. This brings me to my next point...boiling IN the flask is a huge PITA!!! Constant threat of boil over, even when I boil in a pot first, let the ho tbreak fall back in, and have no more foaming in the pot I get tons of foam in the flask. It is way easier for me to sanitize the hell out of the flask w/ StarSan, boil in a pot, cool in the pot, and pour into the flask to pitch.
 
Hooray for the jugs! (I just wanted to say that)

I like to use clear, 1-gallon growlers for most of my starters. They are cheap and give you plenty of extra headspace.

Flasks are good also for the reasons the others have mentioned but I personally prefer to use growlers like this one.
 
Hooray for the jugs! (I just wanted to say that)

I like to use clear, 1-gallon growlers for most of my starters. They are cheap and give you plenty of extra headspace.

Flasks are good also for the reasons the others have mentioned but I personally prefer to use growlers like this one.

I have one just like it but my stir bar keeps kicking...that's what drove me to order the 2L flask! I can get the same yeast growth with half the size on my plate...1L on a stir plate will produce as much as 2L w/ the shake when you walk by method.
 
another vote for the old carlo rossi wine jug... i also used a growler prior to that. i have an erlenmeyer, i just prefer the jugs (more space for big starters if need be).
 
so what's with the stir bar.....is that a necessity? I want to make good starters and i want them to be right. If a stir bar in an E flask is going to make the starter better, i'll spare myself the anguish and just spring for the proper equip
 
Probably the best illustration is to plug in your starting values on mrmalty.com and see how much smaller a starter you will need if using a stirplate and a stir bar. It makes a difference.
 
I cracked my erlenmeyer a few batches ago, right before I was going to start building up a maibock starter. Wound up using a rubbermaid "lock its" food container on the stir plate with the lid sitting "unlocked" on top. Worked out nicely.

http://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-FG7K8200CIRED-Lock-Canister-15-Cup/dp/B0041P0EYW/ref=sr_1_39?ie=UTF8&qid=1302838060&sr=8-39

My 2L growler wouldn't work. Due to the shape and thickness of the glass on the bottom, my ebay stir plate wasn't strong enough to control the stir bar.

I can't boil the starter wort in the plastic container, of course (although... microwave... maybe??), but the erlenmeyer was such a huge mess every single time with boilovers to clean up on my stove.
 
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I just used both to see what I liked better. I personally vote for the stir plate and Pyrex E flask. Very soon I will be starting my frozen yeast bank and really like the dedicated Pyrex stuff.
 
thegerm said:
... but the erlenmeyer was such a huge mess every single time with boilovers to clean up on my stove.

Fermcap foam control drops are the greatest invention in history. Eliminates the boilover problem.
 
+ 1 to anyone saying erlyenmyer. I know it seems expensive and " can work ith somehting eslse.) but hey mady it for a reason. it works great. Lood lock interpedint some of this.
 
flask + stir bar + stir plate(diy of course) = win.. all together probably cost me under $50.
 
Fermcap foam control drops are the greatest invention in history. Eliminates the boilover problem.

+1

Never had an issue with a starter.

Though lately I picked up a couple 8 packs of a Malta type beverage so I don't even have to boil up starters anymore.
 
Damn, I got my 5L Erlenmeyer for about that price - that thing is an absolute monstrosity! I use it for bigger beers to avoid stepped starters most of the time, and if it's the kind of beer that's so big that it practically needs to be knocked out onto a yeast cake, I can do it in a couple steps :)

I also have a 2L flask though. A bottle of fermcap is fairly cheap and the stuff lasts pretty much forever. So I see no reason not to use an E-flask.

Also, I've noticed a few people complaining about their 1L flask. Not much of a surprise there. 1L is incredibly inadequate, especially when you consider that the yeast comes with a cell count that would experience virtually no growth at the 500ml point.
 
one issue I have is when looking at Mr. Malty calculator it often times requires close or over 2 liters of starter to build up an adequate pitch of washed yeast ( if it is a month or two old). I love my 1 gallon cider jugs, I wish I could use a stir plate but I haven't had any issues yet and they are almost free (If you actually use/drink cider or apple juice).

It seems like an extra benefit for a flask, but like everything in this hobby, that means extra cost.
 
I got lucky and my neighbor "accidentally" ordered an extra at work in an order for his lab. Then that extra one accidentally fell into his truck on the way home :D I really need to bottle a 6'er and take down to him.
 
Those of you who want to use alternative vessels on your stirplates can invest in a barbell stirbar, which is much less likely to get thrown on convex surfaces, like the bottom of a jug. If the curve is very slight, you can even try to simply place a pair of small o-rings around the ends of a regular stirbar to stabilize it.

One source for barbell stirbars is Brewmaster's Warehouse.
 
Check Midwest brew supply ...they sell a yeast starter kit for like 30 bucks
It has a 2L flask one pound dme air lock and some yeast nutrient
 
Billybrewer09 said:
Check Midwest brew supply ...they sell a yeast starter kit for like 30 bucks
It has a 2L flask one pound dme air lock and some yeast nutrient

Airlocks are not something you want to use with a starter. Unlike with the actual beer you'll be making... the more oxygen that can constantly be delivered to it, the better.
 
I got lucky and my neighbor "accidentally" ordered an extra at work in an order for his lab. Then that extra one accidentally fell into his truck on the way home :D I really need to bottle a 6'er and take down to him.

I got mine similarly. A neighboring lab was closing down and giving away their glassware. I took a bunch for the lab and a few thing for me!
 
Airlocks are not something you want to use with a starter. Unlike with the actual beer you'll be making... the more oxygen that can constantly be delivered to it, the better.

I dislike this comment because it is very illogical. I am also going to say it is a myth. I will explain...

- O2 is used within hours of pitching the yeast they do not require "constant" O2. (This is taken from Wyeasts site)

- Just because it looks like a tornado does not mean it has a vacuum and/or suction to it. It is a rotation that is mostly isolated to the liquid.

- When the yeast party starts, they produce CO2 creating positive pressure inside the vessel. In other words the flow of gas is out not in.

- I use bungs and airlocks on all my starters on a stir plate or not, I have never had a starter NOT work. I have also never seen an airlock get "sucked down" by negative pressure inside the flask/vessle, ever.

- The stir plate is able to make more yeast because the stir bar keeps the yeast in suspension continually and has little to nothing to do with aeration past the 1st few minutes of it being started.

If I am wrong or off base I would love to have someone with hard data/proof to show me, other than what "someone else told me"...because all of my basic observations say differently...
 
One gallon Carlo Rossi bottle, FTW. I refuse to drop that much money so I can eliminate a single transfer (and a single pot) from my process. To each their own, as is always the case in this obsession -- er, I mean hobby.
 
I use a 1L, then a 2L, then a 1G tea jug. And for each of them I use a different pad under the vessel, because they all sit at a different height on my stirplate.
 
Zamial said:
I dislike this comment because it is very illogical. I am also going to say it is a myth. I will explain...

- O2 is used within hours of pitching the yeast they do not require "constant" O2. (This is taken from Wyeasts site)

- Just because it looks like a tornado does not mean it has a vacuum and/or suction to it. It is a rotation that is mostly isolated to the liquid.

- When the yeast party starts, they produce CO2 creating positive pressure inside the vessel. In other words the flow of gas is out not in.

- I use bungs and airlocks on all my starters on a stir plate or not, I have never had a starter NOT work. I have also never seen an airlock get "sucked down" by negative pressure inside the flask/vessle, ever.

- The stir plate is able to make more yeast because the stir bar keeps the yeast in suspension continually and has little to nothing to do with aeration past the 1st few minutes of it being started.

If I am wrong or off base I would love to have someone with hard data/proof to show me, other than what "someone else told me"...because all of my basic observations say differently...

Chris White's book "Yeast" explains it pretty. Yeah, technically that's a bit like saying "someone else told me" I suppose, though the guy owns and operates a yeast lab that doesn't just produce the 100B-cell count-vials for homebrewers like us, but also produces huge volumes of yeast for commercial breweries as well (not to mention a whole host of other services). If only Jamil Z, or especially John Palmer, had said it, I'd take it with a grain of salt and pursue a better source, but this is the field Chris White is educated in, and continues to live and breathe every single day.

However, the book isn't online and I'm not about to copy a bunch of pages out on my phone. It also didn't include a section with the academic papers proving the various elements that are probably needed to convince you - spanning subjects such as microbiology, fluid dynamics, etc (but with all the references cited, he might very well have provided the sources). Though he does delve a fair bit into the "why"s of things.

That's the reason many people use foam stoppers (and precisely why home brew stores sell them) - to allow for 2-way gas exchange without letting in beer-spoiling microorganisms. The other reccomendation (by both Chris White and now, knowledgeable homebrewers in general) and also quite widely used, is to sanitize a piece of aluminum foil and loosely cover the opening. I don't know if you use the Mr. Malty pitching rate calculator (which is based on widely available experimental data), but if you don't have a stirplate, the next most effective method is "continuous aeration" with an aquarium pump.

If you want to keep using an airlock on your starter, be my guest. But it's bad advice for other people who might use internet forums as their primary or even sole source of information. At least pick up Chris White's book (and perhaps some other reference material as well) if you're going to make posts that have the potential to wrongly influence people. You don't have to blindly believe everything (or anything) he says, but at the very least, it's important to read it before you dismiss it.
 
I dislike this comment because it is very illogical. I am also going to say it is a myth. I will explain...

- O2 is used within hours of pitching the yeast they do not require "constant" O2. (This is taken from Wyeasts site)

- Just because it looks like a tornado does not mean it has a vacuum and/or suction to it. It is a rotation that is mostly isolated to the liquid.

- When the yeast party starts, they produce CO2 creating positive pressure inside the vessel. In other words the flow of gas is out not in.

- I use bungs and airlocks on all my starters on a stir plate or not, I have never had a starter NOT work. I have also never seen an airlock get "sucked down" by negative pressure inside the flask/vessle, ever.

- The stir plate is able to make more yeast because the stir bar keeps the yeast in suspension continually and has little to nothing to do with aeration past the 1st few minutes of it being started.

If I am wrong or off base I would love to have someone with hard data/proof to show me, other than what "someone else told me"...because all of my basic observations say differently...

ok, i hear you. so can anyone corroborate this, b/c i don't know which way is correct. Do you need constant oxygen like the other poster stated or can you use an airlock. An airlock makes more sense to me, seems like the only way to ensure bacteria doesn't get in
 
McMalty said:
ok, i hear you. so can anyone corroborate this, b/c i don't know which way is correct. Do you need constant oxygen like the other poster stated or can you use an airlock. An airlock makes more sense to me, seems like the only way to ensure bacteria doesn't get in

Like I said in the post above, a foam stopper is the preferred method to allow oxygen in without allowing bacteria in, but a sanitized piece of aluminum foil loosely folded around the mouth of the flask will also work. Bacterial infection and the benefits of oxygen in yeast propagation, are two entirely separate matters.
 
ok, i hear you. so can anyone corroborate this, b/c i don't know which way is correct. Do you need constant oxygen like the other poster stated or can you use an airlock. An airlock makes more sense to me, seems like the only way to ensure bacteria doesn't get in

Bacteria and wild yeast can't crawl, they can only fall, so a sanitized piece of foil is sufficient to keep the wild things out and allow the exchange of oxygen and CO2.

Not sure why Zamial has a problem with this but I will continue to follow the advice of the experts in the field (e.g., Chris White) and the plethora of experienced homebrewers who use this technique. I highly recommend the book Yeast to anyone who desires a better understanding of how to increase the health, vitality, and viability of their yeast.
 
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