Stir plate

[koolkuna]

I want to buy a stir plate which one should I buy I live in Melbourne do I need a heated stir plate or not?? Please advise

 

[Mardoo]

1. You should buy one of the Digital Homebrew DIY plates, regular stirplate, or heated stirplate. Why? Because their service and followup on warranty issues is among the best in the business. They are solid, solid plates to start with, but DH bends over backwards to make sure your plate continues to be that solid.

2. You do not need a heated one as long as you do your starters indoors. That said, a heated plate is among the items I most want.

3. There are plenty of threads on here about building your own stirplate from a computer fan. Looks damn easy. Haven't done it.

There will absolutely be other opinions too.

 

[koolkuna]

Yeah I looked at the KK stir plate which is heated but no thermostat or thermometer so how does that work? That would just kill the yeast. The Digital Home Brew model looks great. A bit pricey but quality I guess

 

[kaiserben]

Yeah I looked at the KK stir plate which is heated but no thermostat or thermometer so how does that work? That would just kill the yeast.

I have that stir plate. The heat is either full on, or full off. So I just don't use the heat at all.

The stir part of it works fine.

 

[koolkuna]

So are you suggesting that you don't need the heating at all

 

[peteru]

I have the YeastForge and use it indoors in Sydney. In winter, the ambient temperature tends to fluctuate between 10C and 20C. The controlled heating is very, very handy. I can set the temperature to 22C and be confident that it will remain constant. I suspect you would benefit just as much in Melbourne.

 

[koolkuna]

Yeah that's what I'm leaning towards as Mardoo suggested in the previous post. You just set and forget

 

[koolkuna]

I wonder whether you can plug the KK stir plate which is full on heating or off into the KK temperature controller to regulate the heating? Has anyone tried that?

 

[koolkuna]

Maybe a bulk buy

 

[kaiserben]

So are you suggesting that you don't need the heating at all

Correct.

I wonder whether you can plug the KK stir plate which is full on heating or off into the KK temperature controller to regulate the heating? Has anyone tried that?

No - it won't work because a temp controller will also stop the stir plate as well as the heat source.

 

[koolkuna]

Yeah you're correct I never thought of that

 

[peteru]

And you want gentle heating, so relatively low power, with solid state switching and preferably a PID algorithm or at least a thermostat with small hysteresis.

All-in-all, the YeastForge is good value. Sure, you can buy parts to do a similar job for less, but the amount of stuffing about is hardly worth it.

 

[shacked]

+1 for the digital homebrew stir plates. I've had mine for 2+ years and it's rock solid.

 

[koolkuna]

Well the YeastForge sounds like it will do the job I'll email them and ask for the best price
Thanks guys [emoji106]

 

[Stouter]

My V3 stir plate arrived today, works a treat, happy as.

 

[chook79]

Has anyone heard how far off the next batch of V3 stirplates are?

Seems that everyone is sold out of them at the moment and the LHB stores I've been calling/emailing don't have an ETA on when they'll be back on the shelves.

 

[Coalminer]

There is a new Yeast Forge in development but things are slow. It was supposed to be available by now but is still not ready
Even the discussion thread is closed for comments, don't know why.
I am ready to buy 2 of them but slowly losing interest

 

[Nullnvoid]

Looks like they had problems with the PCB board and that has slowed things down.

https://www.facebook.com/DigitalHomebrew/

 

[lost at sea]

Any update on the yeast forge? are they ever going to be re-produced?

 

[lost at sea]

if no one has any updates on the yeast forge, then can you recommend a decent quality stir plate.