5 Gallon Stir Plate

[thargrav]

How well it worked with the mead. Pretty interesting concept, accelerated mead fermenting, still age just as long?

The 3 months is not for aging, it's to lets the yeast completely settle out for a crystal clear mead. During the settling process I transfer the mead off the trube at least 3 times.

Mead making is more of a extreme hoppy for me. I will make a barch of beer at least once a month but I make one batch if mead a year just for the challenge.

But I guess I gat a little anal about lagers too, making sure they ferment & lager at just the right temperatures and not botting a lager until I fee that its ready.

 

[thargrav]

I'm very interested to hear the results of the mead. It's very impressive that you can get a high gravity mead to ferment faster with the stirplate. I've thought about doing this with a 5L flask and a 1 gallon batch. 1 packed of un-rehydrated dry yeast however, is extremely underpitching. If you made a normal size starter I doubt it would take more than 3 weeks for full fermentation without the stir plate.

I understand what you are saying but I've tried 2 packs of the same yeast with the same results.

 

[GNBrews]

There is the same 14 psi pressure inside the carboy, so a leak wouldn't cause air to "rush" in. If anything, there is more pressure in the carboy because of positive pressure from the CO2 being released from solution.

There's a physics principle called "Partial pressure of gases" that plays into effect (the math in my post). If there's oxygen outside the closed system (in the air outside the carboy), but the headspace contains little or none because of being used up by initial yeast metabolism, the oxygen molecules push on the outside of the container to try to come back into balance.

One of the reasons why beverage companies use PET plastics is that they have fairly low oxygen permeability. That 3PSI of pressure is actually a big deal at the molecular level.

 

[bessieflames]

There's a physics principle called "Partial pressure of gases" that plays into effect (the math in my post). If there's oxygen outside the closed system (in the air outside the carboy), but the headspace contains little or none because of being used up by initial yeast metabolism, the oxygen molecules push on the outside of the container to try to come back into balance.

One of the reasons why beverage companies use PET plastics is that they have fairly low oxygen permeability. That 3PSI of pressure is actually a big deal at the molecular level.

My bad--I didn't read your post thoroughly. I thought you were saying that there would be 14psi (atmospheric) pressure pushing in on the carboy and that a small pinhole would cause oxidation. I know about partial pressures (I'm an engineer). There would be the same partial pressure differential regardless of whether there is a stir plate or not. As soon as the CO2 clears the headspace of oxygen, you have that differential. That is why I like to use glass carboys. I think the main difference with a stir plate vs. without is that the gas in the headspace is being mixed, thus causing a greater chance of oxidation if O2 does get into the carboy. I think that with a glass carboy and a decent stopper you would be fine.

 

[thargrav]

My mead has finally stopped fermenting. I've checked the airlock 3 days in a row and no bubbles.

12/2/2011 to 1/7/2012 makes my mead fermentation just over one month long. That's not bad considering a typical fermentation for one of my meads is 3 months.

And the mead smells great - I'll sample it when I rack to the secondary for more settling.

 

[thargrav]

I just found this short article about high gravity beer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2011/12/as-real-as-it-gets-19-beer/

 

[Skraor]

Buyers beware when purchasing anything directly from Tom Hargrave.

I'm sure you built a bad-ass stir-plate, but I wouldn't know because you didn't ship it to me after I paid you $175. Now after 5 emails, two voice mails, and 3 weeks later I've received no response from you and have filed a dispute with PayPal to receive a refund. I even contacted your distributor, Fox Equipment. Their response, "We heard he received parts to build more, hopefully he got all the parts!" I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not malicious, just a crappy business man.

To everyone else, if you want to buy the Black Maxx I suggest finding a retailer that can confirm it in stock. But unfortunately, I don't trust Tom's ability to honor/fill and warranty related orders. If you want more feedback just google "Thomas Hargrave Better Business Bureau."

BTW, I'm obviously rubbed wrong, but have no ill will. Just want my fellow brewers to know before spending their money.

 

[midfielder5]

Buyers beware when purchasing anything directly from Tom Hargrave.

Sorry to hear he found a new victim. Hopefully you get your money back.
I believe his companies are kegkits.com and stir-plate.com
There are threads on here asserting the same problems you encountered.
He has also replied giving his "side" of the story (see eg, late 2011, his business excuses make for some hilarious reading IMO).

anyways, just my opinion from being on HBT a while now. I believe his hbt user name was also banned last year too, (edit: or at least he stopped posting.)

 

[Skraor]

Wow. I had no clue Thomas Hargrave was such an arrogant, yet cowardly thief. He even has a local news investigation! .

Funny thing is all my stir-plate research was just using the "BlackMaxx" keyword. Consequently, I only came across this thread, a few others, and a couple youtube demos. Search "kegkits.com," and all the skeletons start rolling out. So yeah, his sites are www.stir-plate.com, www.kegkits.com, and www.towercooler.com. And his thargrave ID has was last used earlier this year...so he still lurks.

BTW, couldn't agree more, his back pedaling is pretty hilarious. I especially like: "I hurt a lot of people but no one more than me."

I'm in corporate finance, and I assure you that ANY retailer would take a 3 week float from collections to shipment in a heart beat. If he has legitimate business problems as he claims, and isn't just stealing, then he's a straight retard when it comes to pluses and minuses.

Thank god for PayPal and credit card insurance. I retract my statement about "not having ill will" towards Tom.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[emjay]

Weird. I got a FREE BlackMaxx as a test unit (the only difference from retail being that it only came with a single stir bar rather than two) before they actually started selling. As did about half a dozen other guys here.

The fact that he went to the trouble and expense of distributing these units (especially when he even incurred much higher shipping costs by sending one to me in Canada rather than to another of the many American applicants), for both beta testing *AND* research purposes leads me to believe that he's not so much malicious as he is, apparently, grossly incompetent.

It's actually a very nice product (and certainly beats the hell out of any DIY and even many retail stir plates), but that doesn't matter at all if people aren't getting it when they pay for it, which is unfortunate. The fact that he (even *ADMITTEDLY*) places his business' continued success, and his own personal income, above compensating customers who were previously ripped off when his first business went under is alarming enough for me to not trust him with any of my money, even despite the fact he has some interesting and unique products.

I'm apparently one of the few guys who actually came out ahead with him - for over $200 worth when you consider the free BlackMaxx plus shipping to Canada, all paid out of his pocket - and even I can't in good conscience recommend the guy. Like I said, he actually does have some great and unique products, and I don't think he's maliciously trying to rip people off, but his businesses seem to keep bombing so hard at the expense of his "customers" that, at the very least, it is obvious he has no business running a, well, business. And the fact I'm actually impressed with some of his stuff makes it all the more unfortunate; it's clear that he should NEVER have tried to operate retail businesses but rather have stuck to equipment development, and supplying actual, competent retailers. Now, his reputation might be too damaged even to manage that.

 

[Yavid]

I don't want to draw attention away from the shady/incompetent business practices of the guy developing these large stir plates but I do have a question:

Has anyone done a split batch to compare a stir plate ferment VS regular ferment? I did a quick skim of this thread and I didn't see any feedback from a direct comparison. Does anyone other than the guy building these have results to share? I don't plan to buy one, just want to know if a stir plate for high gravity beers or meads is even worth using.

 

[sudbuster]

I don't want to draw attention away from the shady/incompetent business practices of the guy developing these large stir plates but I do have a question:

Has anyone done a split batch to compare a stir plate ferment VS regular ferment? I did a quick skim of this thread and I didn't see any feedback from a direct comparison. Does anyone other than the guy building these have results to share? I don't plan to buy one, just want to know if a stir plate for high gravity beers or meads is even worth using.

A few years ago I had similar questions so I built a big stir plate to try to get answers. The plate cost about $40 to make but I still use it for normal stirs. To answer your first question: yes.
To answer your second question: no.

 

[Yavid]

Thanks for the reply. Just to make sure I understand you correctly: in your experience the stir plate doesn't help when fermenting high gravity beers or meads. Can you elaborate? What did you brew? Was it a split batch? If so was there any difference between the two batches whatsoever (fermentation time, attenuation, flavour, etc).

 

[IJesusChrist]

Can we get some follow up on these stories?!

 

[beernutz]

Buyers beware when purchasing anything directly from Tom Hargrave.

I'm sure you built a bad-ass stir-plate, but I wouldn't know because you didn't ship it to me after I paid you $175. Now after 5 emails, two voice mails, and 3 weeks later I've received no response from you and have filed a dispute with PayPal to receive a refund. I even contacted your distributor, Fox Equipment. Their response, "We heard he received parts to build more, hopefully he got all the parts!" I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not malicious, just a crappy business man.

To everyone else, if you want to buy the Black Maxx I suggest finding a retailer that can confirm it in stock. But unfortunately, I don't trust Tom's ability to honor/fill and warranty related orders. If you want more feedback just google "Thomas Hargrave Better Business Bureau."

BTW, I'm obviously rubbed wrong, but have no ill will. Just want my fellow brewers to know before spending their money.

Bringing back a dead thread because I was considering buying a rims controller from stir-plate sold on amazon but after reading this, checking the BBB information on Tom Hargrave, and watching the news clip video there is no way in Hades I am letting him anywhere near my money.

 

[insurgus]

Bringing back a dead thread because I was considering buying a rims controller from stir-plate sold on amazon but after reading this, checking the BBB information on Tom Hargrave, and watching the news clip video there is no way in Hades I am letting him anywhere near my money.

same. Just came across this thread and that guy can go eat a...