Heating Devices

[bitter_dave]

I'm moving in a couple of weeks and not sure it is going to be as easy to regulate the temperature in my new place for brewing purposes. Am curious if anybody has used a brewing heating belt / pad, and if they are any good, waste of money etc.

[James]

I used a Brew Belt once and thought it was a total waste of time. You can’t control the power to it in anyway, its always ‘on’. To adjust the temp you are supposed to move it up/down the FV…hit and miss to day the least!

If you ferment in your house (i.e. 20-ish degrees) I see no real need for a belt, room temp is OK for ale’s.

If I had to use a heating element because I was say ferment in the garage, I’d use a 25 or 50watt aquarium thermometer. You place this in the wort. Clean and sterilise it well.!

I can recommend the Hagen Trionic – I have one in my aquarium and the temp is always absolutely spot on with what it says on the dial.. They are about £20 online.

JC

[bitter_dave]

Thanks for the tip James - I wondered whether the 'moving it up and down the bin' method might be a problem. I suppose one of those homebrew thermostatically controlled heaters you put directly in the beer might function in the same way as the aquarium heater mentioned... this is all academic at the moment as I don't know if I'll have a problem - more than anything I was just curious about what others thought about homebrew heaters (pretty sad, eh? :stun ). What I've done up till now is ferment in my study - which has no central heating - and use an electric heater which has a thermostat on, with which i manage to keep the room at a pretty constant 20 C.

DAAB who WOULDN'T want a thermostatically controlled cupboard? I had a look around the internet a while ago to see how they are made to no avail, simply out of curiousity - I doubt I'd ever get around to making one