linky??drunkenscunk wrote:So the youtube video then.
There is a plank of wood or somthing sat inside the bucket handels that looks like it is doing nothing; well it iver must be holding the fermentation bucket up so water can pass under it or it is being held down for some reason.
But the big thing why I do not see this working is because (somehow) he has his heater eliment mounted at the top of the bucket and as heat rises only to top part of the bucket will be heated up
You can sit the FV on a couple of bricks or similar to allow you to use a higher volume of water for its thermal mass without floating the FV
an active fermentation is a turbulent affair, so heat exchange throughout the mass of beer is highly efficient, at the begining and end of the brew the liquor is more still with much less activity and then heat exchange within the body of liquor relies more on brownian motion and is less effective.
the heater is used to heat the water in the trub indirectly heating the brew and therefore not risking scorching and overheating which can happen if the heatuer is sat directly in the beer not forgetting all the sanitation concerns involved with that approach.
And the larger thermal mass of the water resists minor fluctuations in the ambient temp.