Heating brew fridge

[jbaker9]

Hi fellow AHB'ers

I'm about to put on a brew in tropical Tas in a fridge in my shed.

I figured that putting 2 heat belts inside the fridge would be enough to get it to temperature, but this is only getting it to about 9 degrees, need to get to 19 degrees.

Any cheap and easy ideas to get the additional 10C?

BTW, If I hadn't already bought everything and made my yeast starter I may have switched to a lager, maybe I will for next batch.

Cheers
James

 

[mstrelan]

That ought to be enough to heat it. Where do you live that it's so cold? You sure the fridge isn't cooling at the same time?

 

[bevan]

I think that once you have the fermenter with brew in it the mass of liquid and heat belts should be easy to maintain 19 deg. You could try it with just water with an initial temp of 20 deg in the fermenter and see how it goes over night. I have just one heat pad in downtown Riddells Creek country Victoria with pretty cold night temps and it maintains the 18/19 OK.

 

[jbaker9]

Thanks for the feedback. Maybe the fridge was still getting down to temp.. I will put warm water ~40C in my fermenter tonight to try to bump it up.

Fridge and heat belt are both plugged into a thermostat, confirmed fridge is off.

Cheers
James

 

[sstacey]

Tube heater inside the fridge on a shelf below the beer. Insulation of the fridge should keep the heat in. Heating temp can be fitted to an external temp controller. This is how I would do it.

 

[Matplat]

Have you got the heat belts wrapped on the fermenter, or just sitting in the fridge near the fermenter?

Belts should be tight on the bottom end of the FV, and don't worry about localised 'overheating'. It's some bogus theory that people came up with when they didn't have anything to do apart from worry about if their beer would turn out ok.

 

[Bribie G]

Are you doing it "ghetto style" without a heat controller or just checking with thermometer?

I guess that the problem for you is getting the wort up to 19 or 20 initially while the fermentation kicks in. If you are using a tempmate or similar with a probe into the fridge and can keep an eye on things, a quick start solution I've found is just to pop a 5L Bunnings water carrier full of hot tap water in with the FV on pitching.

I've got a couple that I also use as no chill cubes for my experimental half sized brews and they are as cheap as chips.

It's not going to get excessively hot as it's only 5L at say 50 degrees. Initially the yeast is breeding up and not producing any "hot" off flavours, and in your case you are unlikely to get that hot anyway.

Then as the yeast kicks in aided by the initial boost you'll quickly see up to a three degree rise in temperature of the wort itself for a few days. So with the thermal mass of the beer and the exothermic fermentation it should be fine with a single heat belt.

I successfully brew ales at 19 to 20 in insulated boxes with an initial kickstart heat bottle, then after that without heating, where ambient sits in the brauhaus at around 15 this time of year (Northern NSW up in t'mountains) .

 

[Matplat]

Hang on a minute, where's the chestinator trademark reference, careful bribie someone might make millions off your idea

 

[Bribie G]

OT

Behold the mighty Bribie Chestinator®

This post is copyrighted ©

 

[jbaker9]

Thanks for feedback.

Heat belts are loose inside the fridge, temperature controlled by thermostat.

 

[peteru]

Pop into nearest K-Mart or Target and grab an electric blanket. It's the right time of the year.

 

[mxd]

I use a 50 ft snake warmer wrapped around the knife of a fridge. I have a hdat/cool temp controller so works all year round

 

[Glot]

Have I misread or why wouldn't you put the heat belt on the fermenter and measure the temp of the wort itself? As yeast can create some warmth when fermenting. The more mass you have in your fermenting chamber, the more stable the temperature will be. Mass can simply be some bottles of water.

 

[Vrtigo]

Hi There,

I have the exact same setup and it all depends on the insulation of your fridge and where it is located.

My fridge is inside the garage (so no chilling breezes) and it can easily hold 23 degrees even when overnight temp is 6 degrees (as it has been recently in Melbourne) and is a factory second that I bought about 2 years ago (so good insulation / energy rating).

I have my heat belt suspended from the bottom shelf (which the fermenter is on top of) to provide even heat distribution and a side benefit is that you do not have to wrap and unwrap your fermenter every time you put it in and out.

One other benefit of having barely adequate heating is that the temperature of the beer will raise very slowly. I have a larger fermenting which I have set to raise from 7-10 degrees over 7 days. I know that each raise will be nice and slow and gentle as opposed to a quick jump therefore keeping my yeast nice and happy =)

Pic Attached:



Works for me =)