Which first?

I get a Father's Day upgrade to my home brewery and I am trying to decide if I should pick up an oxygen kit or a stir plate first. Ill get both eventually but which first?

Stir plate. All the oxygen in the world won't matter if you under pitch.

Stirplate. Go with 'stirstarters.com' price is decent, and lifetime gaurentee. I've bene very happy with mine.

I haven't had any issues with under pitching, I either make a proper size shaker starter or double pitch. Thanks for your input

I have both, and will go the other way. Oxygen kit. Much easier to keep shaking your starter and/or give it a hit of oxygen before you begin the starter. Much more PITA to shake a carboy for five minutes in my opinion. I will say that the combination of both, along with temperature control for fermentation has been invaluable in my brewing.

DFP51 said:

I have both, and will go the other way. Oxygen kit. Much easier to keep shaking your starter and/or give it a hit of oxygen before you begin the starter. Much more PITA to shake a carboy for five minutes in my opinion. I will say that the combination of both, along with temperature control for fermentation has been invaluable in my brewing.

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I can see that point, however, there are several mitigations on the O2 first. I use buckets, so easy to stir, and I'm Extract/partial boils, so I end up adding a lot of water fresh from the tap. That might have other issues (clorine) but it alows me a good O2 add.

THAT SAID, DFP is right in that shaking a carboy is a pain, and adding O2 that way is problematic. And without an O2 setup, you can't get above 5ppm O2 (with O2 system you can get 9 ppm o2).

But for me stirplate (as evidence I have one without the o2)

Craigmn said:

I haven't had any issues with under pitching, I either make a proper size shaker starter or double pitch. Thanks for your input

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Saving the cost of yeast from having to double pitch only 4x will pay for your stir plate.