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Hi everyone,
I am considering buying a Heat Belt or Head pad for my fermenter as it is mighty cold up my way but I want to make ales.

Which is better? I am assuming a pad as it is more expensive but Im not really sure and couldnt find any information about it.

Any experiences/opinions would be great.

Cheers

yeah, make lagers and pilsners now and ales and stouts in the summer?

Just got back from my brother in laws. His heat pad is heating his beer to a lovely 28 degrees! There is no temp control on the unit, and it's in his Canberra shed (very cool), so I would not be surprised if he gets some odd flavours at that kind of temp.

The advantages I have heard about for a heat pad over a belt is that you can keep your bottles warm with the pad but not the belt. You may need to do this for carbonation of some ales. My bedroom is warm enough to do this (although I don't like to have my fermenter in my bedroom, the bottles are fine), so with the benefit of hindsight, I probably didn't need the pad.

Heat belt gets my vote. I don't really like the idea of heating the fermentor from the bottom ie. heating up the trub. Seems like an easy way to get some off flavours to me. But I've never owned nor used a mat.
I also like the ease of being able to place the belt over the top of the fermentor instead of having to lift a full fermentor onto the mat.

Move to Queensland .......................... It will save you having to buy either

It's a simple matter of economics

Cheers

PS - I have no real comment of value to add to this thread only the above smartarse contribution

Beerpig,

how about you share any ideas you have about keeping your fermenter COOL when you want to make a lager?

As for the heat mat heating up the yeast slurry at the bottom of the fermenter, good point, I'd never thought of that.

I don't think having to lift the fermenter onto tha mat is an issue though. At the moment I'm making a lager and I just turn the heat mat on overnight to keep my fermenter at 10C in stead of letting it drop down to 4C. Then I seitch it off again in the morning. You can just unplug it when you don't want to use it

No worries Blandy

I have a fermenting fridge plugged into an aldoheat thermostat

Lagers and ales whenever I wish

Thermostat was around $110 from Grain & Grape, for a fridge check out garage sales in your area

Cheers

I've got the adloheat thermostat rigged up to a fridge and inside the fridge is sitting @ 17.5-18.0 degrees, just right for ales and I can drop the temp for largers, while it is pretty cold outsite.

The brews are warming up the air space through fermentation.

I bought a heating cable. Like this one

It's 6 metres long & can wrap around 2 fermenters. Being designed for reptiles it doesn't get hotter than low ~20's. So far it's been fine for melbourne's cooler weather this year.

I've got a heat pad, works pretty well for me. I just need to keep an eye on it in autumn and spring if the temps creep up a bit.

i have a heat pad and i use a thin blanket wrapped around the fermenter to fine tune the temperature and to keep it constant. it is at 18-19 degrees without the blanket and 22-23 withit on.

I was wondering how a heat belt could possibly heat such a large volume of liquid up.They are only skinny straps of plastic and don't cover much surface area.

mark68,

If a heat pad can work well with only minimal contact with the bottom of ter fermenter, then I'm sure a heat belt can work pretty well too.

Remember that they only need to keep the wort at about 25C (at an upper limit to most beers), Even on a chilly 5C night, it only has to add another 20C on to the temperature

submersible heaters with a thermostat work well, thats what im using at the moment. gets down to -3 here at the moment, but with it and a blanket and a drum over the top to stop air movement, it keeps it right on. this is out in the shed mind you.

I bought a heater belt today, decided I can return it and buy a pad if it didnt work. Has raised the temperate from 12 to 20, so Im happy

What is the average cost of a heat belt? I assume they are just sold at HB shops? Also, do they have any form of temp control, or are they either on or off? I've never really considered getting one before, but I just prefer Ale so much more that I may have to invest

They are either on or off............unless of course, you have a custom built brew room with a dedicated power circuit controlled by a thermostat to call them up on demand (Or some other similar device) I am not sure of the price now as I have had mine for sometime, but they are relatively cheap.

I bought a heat belt at kmart recently for about $30. I only turn it on at night here in Sydney though; at about 16-18 indoor temp during the day it pushes the brew to about 26.

BLANDY'S TEMPERATURE CONTROL METHOD

- Walk into shed

- check temperature on thermometer.

- if temp is too low, turn on heat pad
- if heat pad is already on, put fermenter-sized box over fermenter
- if box is alredy deployed, worry

- if temp is too high
- remove box if box is deployed
- turn heat mat off if box is not deployed
- if heat mat is already off, worry