Raising temperature of brewing environment

[Do_you_realise]

Hey,


I am currently living in a shared house in the UK and can barely get away with sticking the heating on for an hour, never mind four weeks for beer fermenting and conditioning. I have two options for where to store my FV while fermenting:

Our kitchen is ideal in terms of space and access to sinks/taps etc, but is much larger, making it more difficult to heat, and has averaged about 10 celsius over the winter so far.

Our laundry room, while a more awkward room space-wise, is smaller and so easier to heat and is possibly warmer on average.


What are my options for heating the fermenter itself up to the correct temperature, to allow me to keep it in the kitchen (ideal location)?

Or would I be better off trying to heat the entire of the small room (laundry) with a temperature sensor and fan heater, controlled by arduino? (I have these already and this could be done with minimal tweaking)

Any advice gratefully received.

 

[fermentall]

Hi DYR,put your fermenter in a larger container(a flexible gorilla tub or garden trub bucket)fill with water to reqd level & put a aquarium submersible heater in trub or bucket.set it to desired temp 20deg or so and let it ferment. A 50 watt aquarium heater is cheap to buy & run so is cost effective to solve your probs, lots of guys use this water bath method to good effect. : ken.

 

[Do_you_realise]

Brilliant, what a great idea, thanks! Will any 50w aquarium heater do the job or is there a specific type of design recommended?

 

[PD]

any will do, if possible get the 100 watt version. The water bath approach is a well tried and trusted method of locally heating your fermenter.
I would also look at improving the temp in your laundry room. a tubular wall heater with thermostat is ideal. The room does mnot need to be hot just warmish and combined with the water bath your well away.

 

[Do_you_realise]

Just wanted to say, I went ahead with the aquarium heater and trub bucket water bath and had brilliant results with a FV full of water as a test. Thanks for the suggestion!

I wrote out a new post, long and informative, with links to photos and the aquarium heater I used, for anyone else facing the same issues, but I was told in the end that I can't post it as it looks too "spammy" for a new user. Is there a way to have this restriction lifted temporarily? I can't find any links to messaging mods etc.

Cheers!

 

[pittsy]

you just need to post a few more times then your spam issues will be lifted , i too use the water bucket/heater method , works a treat .

 

[fermentall]

Hi DYR, glad the water bath method got you sorted out. : ken.

 

[rpt]

I think you only need 10 posts so just ask a few more questions, or have a random discussion in the snug, and you'll be away.

 

[graysalchemy]

DYR you have to make a certain number of posts before you can post up links. Join in some of the discussions and you will be able to post pictures before you know it. :thumb:

 

[Do_you_realise]

Thanks for the advice :)

 

[c_burgess]

Just brew lager instead, only joking. If you can insulate this will also keep costs down as aquarium heaters have built in thermostats.