imersion heaters

[pongobilly]

i have at the moment a heat belt which seems to always take the temp too high wherever i place it, i was thinking of buying an imersion heater, how do these work and how do you get them in the fermenter with the lid snapped on, or even more difficult how do you get it in a demijohn with a bung and airlock in

[eskimobob]

You might also consider a flat plate heater that you stand the FV on. I use one of these and find it works well. Having said that, I recently build a temperature controller for it so that I could accurately maintain the FV temperature. Depends a bit on where you ferment too though - if you ferment out in a shed then at this time of year the heat place would probably struggle.