My name is Derrin and I've been a home brewer for about 20 years now. You've probably read my posts on any of the home brewing forums such as BrewCommune, Home Brew Talk, Northern Brewer or More Beer. I go by the handle Backyard Brewer on all of those forums except Home Brew Talk where I'm just plain Derrin.

Like most home brewers, I read about how a yeast starter can really improve your home brewing. So, I bought a commercial stir plate off of eBay. It was used, pitted and even though it wasn't a heated stir plate it got so hot I had to put a 1" piece of foam between it and my flask. It threw the stir bar at high speeds and at low speeds and to top it off, I spent $65 on it. Realizing there had to be a better way I set out to get a new stir plate but I just couldn't justify $129 for a new one. I turned to the forums and sure enough there was thread after thread about building your own stir plate. Most of them were fellow brewers asking for help getting theirs to work after trying to build one and failing, but quite a few had good information. Armed with my new found knowledge and a soldering iron I built my first stir plate. It was ugly, cost me about $60 after all the parts I had to have shipped but it worked!

This simple device made a significant improvement in my beer and I realized that by buying the parts in bulk and etching circuit boards to make assembly quicker I could build other brewers a great stir plate for less than what it would cost them to build one from scratch and make a couple extra dollars for grain and hops. To date I've sold over 400 stir plates to other satisfied home brewers.

Contact Me

For questions about your order please contact me. You should have your order in about 2-6 working days. Longer Probe Ends or Thermowells may take up to a week to ship. I'll make every effort to keep you updated for orders that have any delays or problems.

Be sure to read the Instructions Page. These same instructions are included with your stir plate. I would love to hear about anything you figured out but didn't read and think I should share with future customers.

Privacy Policy

Simple: Your transaction is between us. I might send you an occasional email as I add new products I think other brewers can use but I will never sell or share your information with anyone. The Registration and Checkout pages are protected with 128-bit SSL encryption. All financial transactions are handled through my credit card processor or PayPal.; Your credit card information is never stored in our database, only passed through to the credit card processor using SSL encryption. I never have access to that information and I like it that way.

International Orders

If you place an international order, the shipping may come up zero. You can either send me an email prior to ordering and I can calculate the shipping and send you a Pay Pal invoice or if you place the order and get the $0.00 shipping, I'll send you Pay pal invoice for the difference. In the event that shipping amount is too expensive and you change your mind, I'll just reverse the original transaction and refund your money.

Warranties

If anything happens to your stir plate in the first five years you own it I'll fix it. If I can't fix it, I'll send you another one. You'll be responsible for shipping it back to me but I'll cover the postage to get it back to you. The exception to this is if it arrives to you DOA. In the unlikely event your stir plate is dead when you get it, I'll refund your original shipping to cover the cost to get it back to me.

Stainless Stee lproducts are guaranteed for as long as you own them.

So what good is a one-year, five-year or especially a lifetime warranty if there is no one around to honor it? That's simply not a problem with one of my products. I have invested a considerable amount of money in fixtures, jigs, tooling and inventory, I'm not going anywhere. Here's a picture of the last shipment of circuit boards I had made. (They come in large panels that the individual circuits are separated from.)

Stir bars are not covered by this warranty since I can't control how you store them. If your stir plate otherwise works but starts throwing the stir bar for no reason; the stir bar has lost its magnetism.

 



Refunds

If for some reason the purchase of one of my products pisses you off to the point you just don't want to give me a chance to fix it or make it right; I'll give you your money back. My goal here is pretty simple: Put enough money in the Pay Pal account to pay for my grain, hops or the occasional gadget and help other home brewers make better home brew. Hanging on to a few dollars at the expense of infuriating another home brewer really doesn't help meet that goal.  The exception here is if I made you a custom part to your specs or you modified a part and I can't resell it.

Purchases made through PayPal will be refunded via PayPal.  All other purchase methods will be refunded via company check.  Since I don't store C/C information, it is simpler and safer to just mail you a check.

Re-Stocking Fees

I don't get to charge my vendors a "Stocking Fee" so you shouldn't have to pay a re-stocking fee.

Other Disclaimers

I'm not an electrician, electrical engineer, a certified welder or anything like it. Use this product at your own risk. I'm sure if you really set your mind to it there is some way you could probably really hurt yourself with these products or maybe even kill yourself and others around you. I have no idea, but I figure I better mention it and let you know I am in no way responsible. Unless of course my product helps you place NHC round 2 in which case I'd appreciate you letting everyone know. lol.