Stir plate kit or oxygenation kit?

[spearko520]

I would go stir plate. Intermediate shacking works but when your sleeping there is no shacking. I believe some one from white labs said shacking the carboy for 1 min gives more than enough oxygen. I have an aeration wand (aka hard tubing with a few holes) and shack the carboy. I will prob add a oxygen tank at some point

i think chris white (or jamil) said in yeast that shaking does not get you to the levels of o2 you need. oxygen stone and a tank does- i use my oxy rig w a stone, but you can get a disposable tank at home depot and i think the stone and small reg kit is like 40 or 50 bucks- i would go with the oxygen. i give my starters o2 and then i shake them periodically and get a pretty nice slurry over a day or two. i have noticed a considerable improvement in my beer and fermentation from adding 02 to the wort- especially in higher gravity brews.

 

[spearko520]

I don't understand why brewers grow a starter, let it go to sleep, and then pitch only the yeast.The wurt you pour off is also pouring out millions of additional suspended live yeast cells. Plus you need to wait for the yeast you poured into your batch to wake back up.

I have always begun a starter 2 days before my brew day then pitched the actively fermenting starter, the whole thing, into my batch. And I have always had a bubbling air lock in less than one hour.

+1 - i like to pitch at high krausen, too. i make a couple different starter batches and can them- dark dme, amber dme, light dme, and wheat and light mix. i always pour off a little to taste what my starter is doing, but if i crash it, i'll add a little wort back to get it rolling again. for a beer that i know i'm making again in the near future, i'll pull a jar full after i chill and set that back for the starter.

 

[strongarm]

I had the same decision to make and went with the o2 tank with 2micron stone wand. I like to do high gravity beers and it was a must.

 

[smurfwar]

I was surprised how easy it was to make a stir plate. $20 later and a night of drinking.