Magnetic stirrer ageing

[bluc]

After looking in the aeration thread, Someone mention a magnetic stir plate so just for the hell of it I made a magnetic stirrer and did a quick experiment.
Two lots of 500mls bwko and 15g/l american oak. one bottle on the magnetic stirer and one on bench next to it. For some reason after day 4 the stirer has been tripping my u.p.s after about 8-12h run time. So will have to look at building a better one with better motors etc. The idea is the stirrer move the alcohol around so ther is more in contact with the wood. Took some photos along the way. Have not tasted them because it is just to young will wait till 3 month mark then try it. Only problems with this is the domino tend to get sucked down by the vortex so have to have stirrer running very slow or think of a way to tie the domino in place.Or setup with a wooden keg and a stronger magnet so the wood is fixed in place. But have not got that far yet.

after 24hours



after 48 hrs



Day 4



day 6



At this point my stirrer died and I havent had time to fix it I included a photo from day 11 and you can see its still a bit ahead of the other. Very hard to get photos with the right colour.

Day 11



So I think this may be worth trying with a better setup. It definately pulls colour from the wood faster time will tell what difference it has on taste. Will post back in a few months after I sample. All thoughts welcome

[rumsponge]

great experiment ! :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I cant see any difference though :-B
try taking pictures against a white background maybe with a bit more light ?

looking forward to the long term outcome. cheers rs

[bluc]

Will try getting better pic when i get back home. There is a fair bit of difference but hard to capture in a photo...

[bluc]

Heres a photo against a white background with a light shining on it day 11..

[WTDist]

Heres a photo against a white background with a light shining on it day 11..

do they both have different size oak in them? or is it the optical illusion 8-}

i used to do 14g. last run i did is on 7g/l. plan to leave it for a long time

[bluc]

Optical illusion oak went in by weight. so hard to get colours in photo right...lol the oak on the right looks huge 8-}

[xcvator]

So are you making whisky or tequila :laughing-rolling:

[bluc]

Whiskey but would love to make some tequilla :think:

[Pugdog1]

I made a magnetic stirrer with a speed knob on it. Doesn't work very well but :think: not sure what I did wrong

[Crusty]

I've got an IEC Magnetic stirrer that will comfortably spin 5lt + no worries. I used to use it for yeast starters when doing all grain beer. I just added a stir bar to 2lts of 65% rum to see how that goes compared to one just sitting on oak. Ive got it on the lowest possible setting & it makes perfect sense about more contact with the oak. Its moving around quite nicely so we'll see how it compares.

[crow]

How do you make a stir bar that won't contaminate your spirit

[bluc]

proper Stir bars are lab equipment and are coated with ptfe :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[WTDist]

Pics?

[Crusty]

20160415_155301 (Small).jpg

[bluc]

My stir plate sucked and broke down so couldn't finish experiment but I think this is something definitely worth trying. The bottle on the plate had a definite edge over the in both flavour and smoothness and the amount of tannins it removed from the oak, , but it was a very short lived experiment which I plan to revisit when I have cash for decent stir plate..

[Crusty]

Mine was around $280.00 but well worth it. There's stir plates around for under $100.00 but they struggle to stir much over 2L. This one on the plate has the smallest addition of heads & a tiny addition of tails so I'm just looking at speeding the aging up if possible. I only cranked it up late this afternoon & I wont be doing a side by side to test the results until I do my next single gen run. I've got 120L of rum wash ready to go.

[bluc]

Sounds tasty :handgestures-thumbupleft: will look into the stirrer but I want to get my mashing vessel done first. Which will cost me dearly ~x( .

[Crusty]

I'm only stirring quite slowly but I can see some oak sediment in motion & the domino is doing laps around the flask. When I first turned it on, the domino fell over onto the stir bar but after a couple of whacks from the bar, it's now sitting upright & hugging the perimeter of the flask. It does half a lap, stops for a bit & goes again, has another rest then completes the lap. It makes perfect sense to me that there will be more contact with the oak as opposed to a non agitated aging jar & watching it do it's thing tonight, I can see the spirit passing over the oak. I think you may well be onto a good thing here blu, cheers.

edit: I'm now running the smaller flask from Mondays run.

[bluc]

I had an issue where the dominoes hit the stir bar and it stops agitating. I can see using an oak barrel would help with that as the oak is staionary, would need a strong magnet to get through the bottom of oak cask though...

[WTDist]

Sounds tasty :handgestures-thumbupleft: will look into the stirrer but I want to get my mashing vessel done first. Which will cost me dearly ~x( .

The PID kit im planing to make for mashing, the controller itself is sitting around 70$ so far and i havent even looked (prices) at a box, switches, crimp terminals or wiring yet. And im sure ill think of something else i will need too :shock:
Im thinking maybe i can get it done under $120 but dont tell the missus :shifty: :))