General Category > Equipment and Software
Warming Fermenters a Few Degrees
denny:
--- Quote from: a10t2 on January 23, 2013, 01:33:35 pm ---Brilliant! I hadn't even thought of an outlet timer. I should have plenty of time to get it dialed in too.
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I set mine to come on about 4-7 PM and go off 6-9 AM, depending on how cold it is. Between that and the thermostat on the aquarium heater it works really well.
anje:
--- Quote from: kramerog on January 23, 2013, 01:33:07 pm ---Standard $ 25-35 aquarium heaters have temperature ranges that do not go much below 70 F. The one I have theoretically goes down to 65 F but in fact goes down only as far as 67 F. Maybe you could use a water bath for your ales and put your lager into your fermenter?
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I'm going to guess that if you get a smaller heater for the waterbath you use, it won't be capable of heating the whole volume to a full 70F. Not sure if you'd risk burning it out doing that, though.
Edited to add: Aquarium heaters also usually are meant to be raising the tank temp above normal room temperature. If you've got this out in a 2C garage, you're sure to not be able to get the water bath as warm with a heater as you would in a 21C house.
a10t2:
--- Quote from: denny on January 23, 2013, 02:52:44 pm ---I set mine to come on about 4-7 PM and go off 6-9 AM, depending on how cold it is. Between that and the thermostat on the aquarium heater it works really well.
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My timer has enough little plastic bits for 3-4 on/off cycles a day, so with a few days to play I should be able to get it to fluctuate within a pretty narrow band.
I wonder if I should pick up an aquarium heater, or just use my 1500 W heat stick. ;)
denny:
--- Quote from: a10t2 on January 23, 2013, 03:10:41 pm ---
--- Quote from: denny on January 23, 2013, 02:52:44 pm ---I set mine to come on about 4-7 PM and go off 6-9 AM, depending on how cold it is. Between that and the thermostat on the aquarium heater it works really well.
--- End quote ---
My timer has enough little plastic bits for 3-4 on/off cycles a day, so with a few days to play I should be able to get it to fluctuate within a pretty narrow band.
I wonder if I should pick up an aquarium heater, or just use my 1500 W heat stick. ;)
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Do you think the heat stick might be too much? I guess it's a lot colder there than it is here, so between that and a timer it might be just the thing.
a10t2:
Running it for 15 min should heat 15 gal of water/beer by about 5°C, which is a pretty wide range, but not awful. If I can set it to run for 5-10 min instead, then that's perfect. I'll just have to take another look at my timer when I get home.
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