I'm mulling over making a "stir plate traditional".
It's no different from a normal trad really, other than its made using a stir plate and bar.
The recipe is a straight honey, water, nutrient and yeast, but the must is stirred by the bar and plate. There's a bit of a question about whether the stir plate is run fast enough to form a vortex in the liquid, or just enough to rotate it.
As some of you will know, the current recommended method for meads is to mix the must, then rehydrate they yeast, preferably with GoFerm, then pitch the yeast and give it a good stir. The first half of the nutrient is added one the lag phase is over, then normally it would be stirred/aerated at least once daily, until it hits the 1/3rd sugar break then it would get a final aeration and the second half of the nutrient is added, and its airlocked off to finish.
Now the theory seems to be that a stir plate/bar will not only help with continued aeration, but it would also agitate the CO2 out of solution, which should assist in reducing possible pH swings a bit as well as keeping the yeast in solution and anecdotally speeding.up the ferment......
It won't be straight away, as I have to build a stir plate and I'm gonna get a 5litre erlenmeyer flask for the job (probably)
It's no different from a normal trad really, other than its made using a stir plate and bar.
The recipe is a straight honey, water, nutrient and yeast, but the must is stirred by the bar and plate. There's a bit of a question about whether the stir plate is run fast enough to form a vortex in the liquid, or just enough to rotate it.
As some of you will know, the current recommended method for meads is to mix the must, then rehydrate they yeast, preferably with GoFerm, then pitch the yeast and give it a good stir. The first half of the nutrient is added one the lag phase is over, then normally it would be stirred/aerated at least once daily, until it hits the 1/3rd sugar break then it would get a final aeration and the second half of the nutrient is added, and its airlocked off to finish.
Now the theory seems to be that a stir plate/bar will not only help with continued aeration, but it would also agitate the CO2 out of solution, which should assist in reducing possible pH swings a bit as well as keeping the yeast in solution and anecdotally speeding.up the ferment......
It won't be straight away, as I have to build a stir plate and I'm gonna get a 5litre erlenmeyer flask for the job (probably)
Comment