Seems like it would make things much easier.

Stir plates with the heating function make life WAY easier especially during STB extractions.

Rad. TY.

So does a very large (2-5L) pyrex erlhmyer flask (sorry can never spell that word)

Was just thinking that when my friend sent me a photo of the rounded bottom on a half-gallon bell jar.

It's well worth making one, just find a suitable computer fan, cut off the blades and stick a hard drive magnet on it.

DIY stirrer

It doesn't have a hotplate which is arguably more useful, but you can arrange something like a bowl of water with a heater in it surrounding the jar or whatnot

While those are very quick to make and effective, they do make a lot of noise. For stir bars, a simple zinc plated screw can be used, it does react with lye during STB, but so extremely slowly it would be just foolish to worry about it.

Youtube for plenty of examples.

SWIM's experience has shown that you need to sometimes vary the height and especially the stirring bar/screw/object to get it started, but its really not that difficult, and SWIM recons it can decrease time and/or increase yields in the same amount of soaking time.

If you do choose to make one take some time to find the fan with the highest possible power rating (I would recommend 1.5W at the very very least). Higher power gives it enough torque to support bigger stirrer bars and physically stir more liquid.

wouldn't that compromise the spice?
once it's in free base form, its fairly volatile

swim used a stirplate for a san pedro extraction, it was highly effective. just add the solvent to the basic solution, drop in a stir bar, and let it whirl for about 15-20 mins then separate (this would work well with mhrb too, or just about any alkaloid)

To an extent yes, but:
a) its widely used, and if anything where it is used, higher yields are reported.
b) the spice would be heated for a relatively short amount of time, it wouldn't have time to decompose significantly.
c) the negligible amount of spice that does decompose is a very worthwhile trade off for the greater amount of spice dissolved in the solvent.

Furthermore, heating may be especially worthwhile if followed up by freeze precipitation since on cooling down the solution will become more concentrated, which will make any ultimate freeze precipitation more effective

it would make more sense to heat the naptha prior to adding it to the basic solution