Beer Forum

Hi, I have an old kegerator which I am going to use for fermentation. I already installed the temp controller. I filled the holes where the taps came out and it is wired into the fridge. I need it to be wired into a heater also because living in maine, temps are too cold for an ale fermentation ( my house is always around 60 degrees). I thought about using a heating pad and setting the Carboy or bucket on top of it. Any suggestions?

ayla wrote:Hi, I have an old kegerator which I am going to use for fermentation. I already installed the temp controller. I filled the holes where the taps came out and it is wired into the fridge. I need it to be wired into a heater also because living in maine, temps are too cold for an ale fermentation ( my house is always around 60 degrees). I thought about using a heating pad and setting the Carboy or bucket on top of it. Any suggestions?

I think using a low powered heating pad would be perfect. Something like this?

http://www.homebrewing.org/Heat-Pad-for ... _2509.html

In the past i've used a 25 watt reptile heating cable around the edge of my fermentation walls. It was more than enough to keep my fermentation fridge warm.

http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-Reptile-C ... e+25+Watts

I use a 60 watt light bulb in my mini fridge. You could probably use a 100 in your freezer. Obviously cover it with something (paint can?) if you're using carboys.

I use the heat tape from this company, it works really well and is very cheap, like 13 bucks for enough to go around a better bottle/carboy with the plug. I can do saisons in the winter if I want to.

http://www.reptilebasics.com/12-heat-tape

I lived in FL before coming to HI, I have zero fucking concept of needing to heat a fermentation chamber. I'm going to be brewing a Saison this weekend because it's consistently 80 degrees in my apartment right now.

You Northerners confuse me.

Yeah the NE can be really fucking crazy with its temp. swings. I need a dual stage Ranco since my garage could be 75 during the day and 50 at night.

I use a fermwrap and a temp control, works great. Be careful setting anything ON TOP of a warming blanket, just wrapping and taping it should work. Tape the thermometer on the opposite side of the warming device and maybe wrap a blanket around the whole thing, thats what I do.

http://morebeer.com/products/fermwrap-h ... ?site_id=5

Bobbie Dooley wrote:I lived in FL before coming to HI, I have zero fucking concept of needing to heat a fermentation chamber. I'm going to be brewing a Saison this weekend because it's consistently 80 degrees in my apartment right now.

You Northerners confuse me.

You moved out of Western Estates?