Stir plate : To much spin?

[Facinerous]

Maybe a stupid question, I don't know. Is it possible to have a stir plate that stirs to much?

I just finished building my stir plate, and the capability of this silly thing is beyond what I anticipated. I did it my way instead of what is commonly seen with a diy stir plate.

So my stupid question is. Can you have to much stir action going on to where its detrimental to the actual yeast starter.

Of course I am not going to be splashing wort all over the place. This is just in relation to the vortex created, and how fast things are moving.

 

[Docbruw]

I'm not sure if a crazy vortex would hurt your yeast. I do know you do not need a vortex of any kind to make a good yeast starter. All you need the stir plate to do is keep the yeast moving and in suspension. I've tossed the stir bar a few times in the middle of the night with to much speed on the "stir" and the vortex I had wasn't even close to what your picture shows. I'd rather have a slow stir than toss the bar and have no stir all night.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

You'll get a little less vortex when you have your starter potion in the flask, as the viscosity will be a little higher, so more drag on your stir bar.

 

[Facinerous]

Nice. Thanks guys. I ended up looking around a bit more and found quite a few answers. They are all roughly the same. I guess I'll just mess around with it when the time comes.

 

[iaefebs]

A stir plate only needs a slight vortex. Once a starter absorbs oxygen 8 ppm or so it can't take anymore in no matter how much vortex applied. I've heard that too high of a vortex can cause the cells to shear damaging and destroying the cells.

 

[Facinerous]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I did a silly test with it and filled a 6 gal bucket to about 5 gal. Threw it on the stir plate and let er spin. It was funny cause I think I could oxygenate 5 gal of wort with this thing after a boil if I wanted to.

I don't want to be damaging any of my little yeast buddies though, so I'll keep the RPM down.