How do you use a heat belt?

[Bribie G]

Having moved from Queensland to Australia, this is my first winter here and I have acquired a heat belt - kindly donated by lucas during his re-org. As a heat belt virgin I'm wondering how to use it. Clearly it makes part of the beer warmer and this slowly convects through the brew.

So using it with a Fridgmate in my case, you put the fermenter into an insulated area such as a turned off fridge, then attach the belt to the fermenter.

Then you plug the heat belt plug into the FM female, then plug the FM male into the mains, having changed the setting to "heat".

Select temp and away you go.

So where would you put the FM sensor? I'd guess there are some spots that would give you a false reading because they are too close to the belt, and others that would give a too low reading and cause the belt to work harder and heat the beer more than required. Would it be an idea to wrap the fermenter in some light lagging such bubble wrap, then attach heat belt, so that the belt isn't firing directly into the beer through the thin fermenter wall thus producing hot spots? I'd guess over the course of a few days the heat would become evenly distributed inside the insulated box or fridge and beer so that the FM probe could just sit attached to maybe the top of the fermenter?

Not able to do a thermowell.

 

[fletcher]

i was advised it was better to put the heat belt in my fridge and hang it. mine kinda hangs towards the back, and doesn't touch the side of the fridge or fermenter.

don't know if that helps mate, but mine has worked fine just taped inside the fridge, hanging loosely.

EDIT: just re-read. i have my STC sensor attached under a thick sponge right up on the side of the fermenter. it keeps the ambient temperature reading out so that when i open the door, it doesn't sky rocket up. seems to work ok. i just tape the sponge to the side of the fermenter.

 

[jaymzica]

I just have mine on the bottom of the fridge.

 

[breakbeer]

I think you're a glad wrapper, so this probably wont help. I put an extra hole/grommet in my lid & the sensor sits directlyl in my wort.

Heat belt around the fv about a third of the way up. I've head on here that some people just have the belt sitting loosely in the fridge

 

[wbosher]

I just sit the belt somewhere in the fridge, not actually around the fermenter, in fact not even touching it. In an insulated area like a fridge, it just warms the air, not the fermenter.

Attached the temperature probe to the side of the fermenter, insulated by an old coolie.

 

[Bribie G]

Well that's an eye opener, I took it that "belt" meant just that and wrap it round the fermenter. Makes total sense just to drape it around the back or sides of the fridge to heat the ambient inside, after all that's what the fridge does on cool.

Thanks guys.

 

[dougsbrew]

i'd be concerned about a fire/electrical risk in doing that. I once put my heat belt around my esky mash tun in a experiment to hold mash temp steady, it melted straight through the plastic. was a 30 watt job. imo, caution with this option, I would prefer the heatsink method myself(wrapping it around something.)

 

[Cocko]

I would say, if you are measuring the wort directly, thermowel or what ever, use it as a FV belt - as intended and mentioned by Breakbeer.

If you are controlling air temp, and your temp sensor is just dangling in the fridge, which is my case, hang it in the fridge but as DB above mentions, do it with caution, so preferably not touching anything, in particular itself. If this does worry you for safety, I guess you could use it as a belt and just work out, by trial and error - ambient temp vs actual wort temp and adjust your controller accordingly, eg; You may need to set it to 12 or 14....

2c

 

[jyo]

I tried dangling/draping my heat belt in my fridge last winter, instead of the usual wrap around as they are intended for and this happened:

This is the plastic internal wall of my fridge, with insulation showing. The bloody thing burnt straight into it.

I now just use a two litre juice bottle which I add hot water to if the temp drops a little over night and sit that next to the fermenter. Works a treat, I stress less, and save a call to the fire brigade!

 

[AndrewQLD]

Heat belts and heat pads need a heat sink to draw off the heat ie your fermenter or they can get too hot, the heat belts are really prone to over heating and melting as pointed out above, the heat pads are a lot more forgiving if you are using them in a fridge due to the larger surface area of the plastic that the wiring runs through.
And don't be tempted to wrap a towel or blanket around the fermenter with a heat belt on, ambient air temp was 6c and the brew was at 36c after running the belt overnight.
Won't do that again h34r: .

 

[daveHQ]

It was -2 in Ballarat (Vic) this morning, I checked my choc porter at 6am, it's in a little chest freezer I'm my shed, it was happily sitting at 20deg

I have a stc-1000 controlling the temp, the heat source is a 14W reptile heat pad $15 from eBay free post!! It's just sitting in the corner of the freezer

The point I'm trying to make is, it takes VERY LITTLE heat to maintain temp, freezers/fridges are very well insulated, so dangling a heat source in the corner seems to work well

Any free freezer space is filled with the bottles from the last batch bottled

As for the temp probe, I duct tape mine to the side of the fermenter, then tape a old stubbie holder cut in half over the top of it

 

[treefiddy]

I have a reptile heat string thing a few metres long rated about 30 watts which doesn't melt through stuff if you leave it on (can drape it in the fridge).

I also have a standard heat belt which I tried hanging in a cupboard and letting it warm the space rather than the FV. After about half an hour the thing was ******* hot and smelt like it was melting itself.

 

[Kronic]

IMO the only way to go is a heat pad. They are 60 bucks but safe and flat. I just used Velcro to stick mine to the back of the fridge. Another thing I learnt from this site was that a PC fan helps circulate the air since I have reset up my fv fridge I havnt had a problem. I have also had problems with heat belts, I through mine in the bin

 

[tcc]

I was just thinking about this, not that Brisbane is ever cold but a consistent temp is nice and atm its getting below the 18-20 I like for my ales during the night. I guess even something like a lightbulb would create enough heat given the great insulation you get in a fridge? There must be a recognized way of doing this?

 

[verysupple]

I think it probably depends on the wattage of you heat belt. Having said that, I have a pretty weak one (25 W reptile encolsure cord) and ATM I have it wrapped around my FV in the fridge. I have my temp probe about 2/3 of the way toward the centre and it reads an increase of about 0.1 C / 10 min. I think this might be a bit too much heat causing a steep temp gradient and might change to a hnging setup as descibed previously.

 

[bcp]

IMO the only way to go is a heat pad. They are 60 bucks but safe and flat. I just used Velcro to stick mine to the back of the fridge. Another thing I learnt from this site was that a PC fan helps circulate the air since I have reset up my fv fridge I havnt had a problem. I have also had problems with heat belts, I through mine in the bin

Not a fan of heat pads because I don't like heating the yeast at the bottom (obviously not a problem the way you use it though). I put the belt down low, the sensor up high. I put a loop of the sensor wire through the rubber ring I use for the glad wrap to protect the sensor from being pulled off if I move it.

Before that I had the sensor fall off and found the wort very hot! Fortunately it had mostly fermented out, so the resulting beer was still quite a good batch.

 

[Cocko]

In my other heat box I run a little 1200w heater - 3 years in and never had an issue. It runs for about 10 seconds, every couple of hours in the coldest of days!





It really depends where your controller probe is - In wort, belt it. In fridge, heat fridge.

 

[capsicum]

Something else to throw in the mix - mine is on a cheap mechanical timer. Fifteen minutes every hour so the fridge isn't constantly battling

 

[Aydos]

I wrap my heat belt around the top third and attach my probe to the bottom third. I don't have any dramas with the belt interfering with the probe pickup. Works a treat and only warms the wort/beer, not the yeast.

I agree with making sure its around the fermenter though as I wrapped it around my yeast starter and it was over lapped and it nearly caught fire. Definitely not a good idea just hanging it in the back of the fridge. They get pretty hot.

 

[manticle]

I usually let my heat belt sit on the upper grill style shelf so it is not in contact with anything bar some painted metal.. The sensor is usually taped to the top of my FV and insulated by a small piece of zote foam. When cold conditioning, I just let it dangle. It's been playing funny buggers though so I'm going to be replacing it.

I regularly measure my wort temperature by sticking a thermometer in the hydrometer tube when I take a sample. When actively fermenting, I find most of my brews are about 2.5 degrees above the reading so I set 2.5 below (actually often pitch 3-4 deg below and slowly ramp throughout fermentation).