Personally, I am using the plate to start-up a cake I had recovered and washed from a previous primary. It’s been in the refrigerator for about two weeks, so this process (I let them stir and multiply overnight) makes them ready to pitch later during brewday.

Making your own stir plate is simple. The tools you’ll need are a screwdriver or two, drill (with bits), superglue and a soldering iron. I followed instructions or pictures from these following sites: via Homebrewtalk, via David Trumbel, via Beertools. Given that I had a few of this items laying around, this all in all cost me approximately $25.


Parts

• 1 – 4″ PC DC Fan (check the voltage, make sure it will match what you’re feeding it)
• 1 – Project Box Radio Shack #270-1806
• 1 – Rocker Switch Radio Shack – #275-694
• 1 – Knurled Knob Radio Shack – #274-424
• 1 – 25 Ohm Rehostat Radio Shack – #271-265
• 1 – 12v DC Power Supply (old cell phone/camera charger)
• 1 – Rare Earth Magnet from old PC Hard Drive or decent magnets
• Wire (you’ll use under a foot)
• Some way to stabilize the fan (I superglued it to a small, empty spice container)
• Magnetic stir bar (you can find these cheap online)
  

Costruction

1. Drill holes for on/off switch, power supply wire, rehostat in the project box. Ensure everything fits properly.

2. Prepare the fan wires; mine had PC power supply hookups so I did not have to strip the wires.

3. Prepare the power supply wires. Snip the end with the device plug in adapter. Now to quote Homebrew talk user Anthony Lopez “Some phone chargers will have two wires, while others I’ve found have a “braid” going around another insulated wire. The “braid” is our ground or negative and the inner cable is your power side. For the chargers with 2 single wires inside, black is your ground.”

4. Connect the ground (black) of the power supply to the ground (black) of the fan.

5. Solder the male end of the power supply wires (red or striped) and solder it to the top terminal of the power switch (may be labled supply). If you have it oriented correctly (the ‘O’ on the bottom for off) this is usually the top terminal on the back of the switch. Here is a decent picture of that.

6. Connect the other terminal of the power switch (may be labled load) to the middle arm of the rehostat using a short length of wire. Solder it in.

7. Almost done wiring; now connect the ‘red’ of the fan to an outside arm of the rehostat. This is were I got confused – and it may be a good idea to test out your setup before you solder it in, to ensure you have the polarity right and your rehostat is working.

8. When all of the soldering is done and you’re satisfied, find a makeshift way to stabilize your fan in the position you’d like. Like I mentioned, I superglued it to an old spice container (which was also superglued to the bottom of the project box). Another note if you’re using superglue; give it a few hours to dry before you close up the box or you’ll get crusty junk coming out all of the openings of your device, yuck.

9. Use common sense/test runs, to align the magnets properly to spin the stir bar. Glue them down.

10. Clean up the inside of the box and when you’re sastisfied, screw up the box and enjoy!

Another quick note, if you’re in Chicago and want some help building one of these, drop me a line. I don’t mind :)

• Beer Deconstruction: Have you ever tasted malt? Smelled hops? Drank warm sweet wort? Drinking finished beer is one thing, but examining and fondling each ingredient for the first time was a wondrous experience. It brings tremendous perspective to the already beloved final product.
• Starting the boil: Every thing is cleaned? All cold side equipment is sterilized? All my ingredients are weighed and ready? Then f%$# yeah lets get this boil started! Turning on the burners (or electric warmers, which aren’t as romantic) means ~60 minutes of relaxed stirring, smelling wort and drinking your brewbeer (the cold one you have to drink while making beer, isn’t it brewlaw?).

Stresses

• LME IS STICKY: I was warned but…ARRRRRRRRRRRRG! Next time, I’ll have this on lockdown.
• Filtering: I had all sorts of worries about filtering trub/hopcrud from my first beer. First, I thought putting my hops in a bag would limit the larger particulates – but the other half of my brain got nervous about limiting the contact with the wort. Secondly, cheesecloth filter worked great as an abstract boat, floating about the incoming cooled wort, resulting in a chunky mess swirling around the fermenter. In the end, I let gravity do it’s thing and my beer looks lovely sitting in the secondary. OVERALL WARM AND FUZZY MORAL OF THE STORY: RDWHAHB; most mistakes can be fixed with a little engineering or time and if they can’t then call them features.

• You’re going to fuck up. Don’t let that scare you.
• You have to drink beer while making beer.
• Read Jim Palmers ‘How to Brew’. Now.
• Be patient! Fermentation, conditioning takes time.
• There are many good computer tools out there.
• If a full boil is possible, DO IT.
• Clean and sanitized are not the same thing. You need both.
• You aren’t going to save any money by brewing your own beer.
• When in doubt, wait a week.
• Oxygen before fermentation good, oxygen after fermentation bad.
• …and of course: Relax, don’t worry, and have a homebrew!

Interestingly, I also found out that Alton Brown did a homebrewing episode of Good Eats. Have not watched it yet but I already know it’s entertaining. Now I just need the Food Jammers to do one…