DIY 80cm £8 Stainless Steel Stirrer

I have an 18" plastic spoon to stir with that I bought from Tescos a while ago and it's not great.:-

• It's too short for the fv so I get my hands too close for sterile usage.
• It's a pain in the ass if you're trying to aerate the brew.
• When I stop using it, it drops nearly all the way in the brew, which I then touch with my hands, which isn't sterile.
• It bends and flexes when I stir with it as it's made of plasic.
• It's difficult to stir with using one hand and it's too short for using it with two hands.

I popped into my local Ikea to buy a wardrobe rail and also the excellent TAJT vase to use as a trail jar that mansemasher kindly recommended and saw an 80cm stainless stell GRUNDTAL rail for just £4 and thought I'd build an upgrade to my spoon. It's ideal because it's long, strong, won't corrode and uses a nut on each end to attach it to the brackets so I can mount anything I want on the end. I've considered the white plastic paddle that's available all over the Internet, but it's not much better than the spoon.

I wanted to have two different ends on it - one for plain stirring and one for aerating. There are other options available, and I'm not sure about the stirring end - I was considering buying a small frying pan instead (and still may if I see a cheap stainless steel one) - but couldn't find a small, stainless, cheap frying pan in Ikea. I decided on a stainless steel BAREN toilet brush for £2. I would have liked to buy a whisk for the aerating end, but thought it would break and also it would be a pain to attach and stop water getting into the GRUNDTAL rail. I decided on the stainless steel ORDNING cutlery stand you see EVERYWHERE for a mere £1.80!

The Allen head bolts that came with it were too short so I replaced them with some from the garage along with four really thick strong washers I also already had (if you're mad enough to also try this project you can buy them on Ebay or your local hardware store). These are zinc-plated/galvanised rather than stainless steel like the rest of the bits, but I tested them by soaking them in paraffin for an hour to clear off any oil etc, then washing, then soaking in VWP overnight and they were fine. You can see all the bits below:-


To draw the mark to cut, I taped a sharpie to some posties (or you can use something else flat that's the right height) and turned the toilet brush and cutlery stand around until there was a line on each to cut along:-


I used a jigsaw because I'm lazy. If you are doing the same, you will need to drill a hole first to start cutting from:-


I then used my dremel to smooth the edges and make them all even. The ends of the "bowls" are sharp and will cut skin or scratch the inside of fermentation vessels, so the edges need turning. To start off, use needle-nose pliers to bend the top couple of millimetres of steel over 90 degrees, then use a hammer to bang it down and over, then something like the thicker end of a nail-punch to hammer it over:-


Then, I drilled a hole to run the bolt through and attach it to the rail:-


I used the washers either side of the side of the aerator/stirrer to grip it well and hold it securely. I used loctite on the nuts inside the rail to make sure it doesn't come loose:-


Here it is finished, kinda ugly, but works great:-


It's about twice as tall as the fv, so will be really easy to stir it and I can use both hands:-


I will of course sterilise it (10 mins for either end) when I sterilise all the other equipment inside the fv before use. Please be gentle, I know it's definitely function over form, but it's better than the plastic spoon and as it's stainless steel it should last forever.

I used it when making a youngs 30 bottle Sauvignon Blanc kit and it works brilliantly. Sooo easy to stir when you can use both hands.
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