degas with strir plate?

[BeerWard]

I started my first batch of mead today. 1gallon of water, 2lb 12 oz of local wildflower honey, yeast nutrient, and energizer. Using lavlin D47. My question is about degassing. It is in primary and instead of opening it to stir, I just put it on my stir plate. My plan was to turn it on a couple of times each day to degas. Instead, I could just leave it on constantly at a lower setting. Is my occasional plan OK, or am I missing something? Thanks

 

[BeerWard]

I have been running the stir plate about 3 times per day for a couple of minutes. The airlock goes wild with activity. After the gas slows, then I will turn it off. Just added my additional nutrient, and it seems to be going well.

 

[daugenet]

this sounds pretty interesting. I suspect you would have some trouble with it if there was a lot of fruit used though. Keep reporting your results though. This sounds a lot easier than using my wine whip!

 

[malkore]

Is the stir plate reversible?

You do NOT want to whip air in there, which a stir plate is great at doing for starters when left running.

When using a drill mounted degasser, I run it one direction until I get the 5 gallons moving in a nice swirl. then I reverse and blast it with a few short bursts. this causes a volcano of CO2 to come out, without whipping air into the top of the liquid (although primary should be so CO2 filled its less likely to be an oxidation risk....still its nectar of the Gods we are dealing with here)

So if you can get it stirrign one way, then reverse direction, that should really maximize your degassing experiment here.

 

[BeerWard]

My plate is not reversible. It is a DIY with a computer fan, and not sure it could move 5 gallons anyway. My first batch is about 1.25 gallons in primary. I was concerned about oxidation but since, I can start the stirring without removing the airlock, figured it would be safe.

After work, I got home started the stirrer, had the usual air lock activity. I got distracted and it ran about 10-15 min. When I got back the airlock had essentially stopped, so figure it was more completely degassed then the previous 1-2 min spin.

 

[BeerWard]

So after 4 days of fermentation, turning on the stir plate creates a lot less airlock activity. It still is steady, but not gushing like the first couple of days. Guessing that fermentation is slowing. I will plan on a gravity reading later today.

 

[BeerWard]

It has been a week since starting and the stir plate doesn't generate any activity now. I am planning on a gravity reading, letting things settle and then rack to a carboy for aging.

 

[Kahler]

What were your findings? Im starting a mead this weekend and had this same idea.

 

[BeerWard]

The mead turned out fine. I was under initial gravity, because of too much water at the start. This may have made it a little thin. But using the stir plate was a great way to degas, under an airlock. I was using a 2 gallon bucket, and the stir plate worked fine. Mine would be under powered for a 5 gallon batch. Right now, my mead batches will be 1-2 gallons, so I would use this technique again without hesitation.

 

[Kahler]

Awesome! My plan is to start with 1 gal batches so this is perfect.

Mind posting your recipe(s)?

 

[BeerWard]

Sure, this was my first mead, so I wanted it a simple, basic dry mead. I can't find my notes, but I used 2lbs 12 oz of natural mountain wildflower honey. Added a gallon of water. Heated to mix it all, but didn't boil. Cooled and pitched rehydrated LalvinD47. I used staggered nutrient additions, and used the stir plate a few times a day during the first week to degas. After primary fermentation was done, I racked to a one gallon carboy and aged for 6 months.

I should have used less water initially. Instead of 1.100 OG, I got 1.080. It fermented dry. I had never a dry mead before, so it gave me a base to think about fruit additions in the future.

 

[Kahler]

Great! Thank you again for your input. I'll be starting my mead tonight.

Using 3 lbs Mesquite honey for a 1 gal batch, nutrients, and energizer. I'll let you know how it goes.