[PORTERHAUS]

How would a red heat lamp do for heating fermentation chest? As far as I understand it is incandescent light will take a lot more to skunk a beer. I would imagine the red heat lamp would be ok? I seen both the heat lamp and a reflecting socket to put it in while shopping around today. No worries about skunking a fermenting beer with this kind of setup?

[toby]

The issue with a setup like that is potential condensation.  That work light is probably not rated for wet conditions.  Terrarium setups generally are.

[factory]

I bought a "desktop" 200 W ceramic space heater at Wal-Mart. It has its own thermal cutout at ~40°C for added safety, and is plenty powerful enough to keep a 100 cu ft fermentation chamber warm.

I have one of these too.  It is controlled by a Johnson A419 Controller.  I want one of those BlackBox temp controllers though.

[mabrungard]

Interesting note:

I did some quick calcs to see what the heat loss for a 3' by 3' by 3' insulated chamber would be so that I could understand how much heating power we really need in typical brewing.

Assumptions:

20C interior temp desired (ales)
4C exterior temp (that's cold!)
5 sq meter chamber surface area for 3 by 3 by 3 chamber.
Polyisocyanate foam R = 1.0 sqm K/watt in
Expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam = 0.7 sqm K/watt in

Calcs:

Temp difference is 16 C or K

Watts = (Area x Temp Diff)/(R x foam thickness)

1 inch polyiso loses 80 watts
1 inch EPS loses 114 watts
2 inch polyiso loses 40 watts
2 inch EPS loses 57 watts

As you can see, the heating power does not have to be that high. Since the example above is pretty extreme, I'd expect that most systems would need even less heating power.

[PORTERHAUS]

Quick update...I have been using the 250 watt red heat lamp inside my chest freezer for fermentation and it's been working great. I feel much better about this setup than what I have used in the past. It's been cold around here lately mostly below 30's and with the fermentation chest out in the garage it's not much warmer. I also have a 125 watt heat bulb but haven't used it. It's not red but that might be better for when it's not as cold out. For some reason I feel better about the red light then the regular, although incandescent light will not hurt the beer, correct?

[emcfarden]

Infrared reptile bulb.

+1 on this one. I took the shield off the back of an old hanging work light and its hanging upside down from the top of the fridge in the corner.

[brewsumore]

Fermenwrap duct taped to the rear wall of my fridge ferment chamber.

[jjflash]

Brewer's Edge space heater pad.
Only 25 watts power.
Slap one on the back wall of every refrigerator I use for fermentation chambers.
In the dead of winter they keep the refrigerator at 78 with no problem.
Used them for many years and only burned one out.
Running six refrigerators with them in now.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWERS-EDGE-SPACE-HEATER-P518.aspx

[BrewBama]

Brewer's Edge space heater pad.
Only 25 watts power.
Slap one on the back wall of every refrigerator I use for fermentation chambers.
In the dead of winter they keep the refrigerator at 78 with no problem.
Used them for many years and only burned one out.
Running six refrigerators with them in now.
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWERS-EDGE-SPACE-HEATER-P518.aspx

+1. I have two of them. They work great.

[wingnut]

I repurposed a Brew Belt I had from way long ago.   I just put it inside my freezer in the garage and let it maintain temperature with  a johnson controller.  (the same one that tells my feezer to cool in the summer time, but with the dip switch set for heat)

It just does not take much to keep the inside of the freezer at temp.  I would say 10 watts is plenty.