Heating

[Gryphon556]

Hi Guys,

Wondering what sort of heater I should buy for brewing beer, I recently bottled my first batch using the Coopers Lager beer kit with brew enhancer 2 and the instructions with it said the temp should have been kept in the mid to high 20's which seemed pretty high since I recall reading that lagers are meant to be brewed a lot lower at something like 10 - 15C? But regardless, fermentation seemed to slow a lot when we had a few cool days (We have yet to see summer in Tas) and then seemed to have completely stopped after about 6 days.

I've been looking at either a "belt" style heater or a 25w aquarium heater, my question is: Are the aquarium heaters ok to submerge in the brew? I was concerned about local over heating of the brew and how they would stand up to being steralized in bleach or whatever.

Are belt heaters more effective/efficient? I'd rather keep things as energy efficient as possible. Also wondering how the belt would work since my current fermentor is square rather than round.

 

[verysupple]

Firstly, your kit may have come with a clean ale yeast to mimic a lager which may explain the recommended high temp. Actually, that's high even for an ale, but it sounds like you're reading and learning so you'll soon be making your own decisions about such things.

Secondly, as for heating, I agree that the aquarium heater might not be a great option because of localised heating. Having said that, fish are pretty sensitive to temp. so maybe it wouldn't be an issue.

I use a reptile enclosure heat cord (~25 W i think) coiled up un the bottom of my fermenting fridge (some people just hang them in the fidge). I used to have it wraped around the FV but found it heated too quickly and the temp would overshoot by quite a bit when using an STC-1000 to control it.

So I'd go the heat belt or a cheap reptile heat cord. They're pretty much the same thing but one's cheaper.

 

[Gryphon556]

Thanks for the reply

Yep, been reading what I can time permitting, downloaded a handful of eBooks on brewing which I've only skimmed through to date and now I've found this forum looks like I'll have a lot more reading to do lol

I might jump on eBay and see if i can find a cheap belt heater, Do they have a controlable thermostat built in like the aquarium ones or would i have to buy a probe and thermostat? Trying to keep costs down to a minimum at the moment.

 

[Gryphon556]

Found this but doesn't look like it has any way to alter the temp short of a lot of trial and error and using a timer

http://tinyurl.com/kbjapgh

Or the aquarium one: http://tinyurl.com/p7gotxhhttp://tinyurl.com/kbjapgh

 

[verysupple]

Both those links are the heat cord.

But that's the type of thing I have. You're right, it's not adjustable. As I mentioned, I use an STC-1000 (which is a thermostat type controller with a probe - cheap but requires some assembly - otherwise you can buy equivalent controllers ready to go but they cost a lot more).

Unless things have changed since I first looked in to temp. control, the heat belts sold by homebrew shops aren't controlable either so you'd need some sort of controller for it.