Heating element for fermentation chamber

Im going to eventually build a ferm chamber. I found a candle warmer for a couple bucks and was wondering if that would make a good enough heating element? I've seen people use light bulbs, so I figure this thing will supply enough heat for a 1 or 2 carboy-sized chamber. Anyone have any thoughts?

I built a ferm wrap and used a two stage temp controller.

Cheap FermWrap

amb 1935,

Something like a fermwrap that malric mentioned is the best thing to keep your carboy temp. regulated provided that you are only fermenting one 5 gallon batch at a time or a 10 gallon batch of the same beer in two carboys. Two carboys with different beers will not work. My carboy heater that I made with heat tape from this place keeps my beer temps in the carboy to within fractions of a degree of the set point (verified when taking gravity readings).

11" Flexwatt Heat Tape

I built a masonite top for a our extra shower, making it a 4' x 4' x 6' enclosure with a glass door. I hung a house-thermostat in the front, wired it to an outlet mounted to the top and plugged in a heating pad (the kind for your back) that hangs in the middle. looks kinda rube-goldberg and the SWMBO loves it..... It works great.

I've used a 60w ceramic reptile heater that screws into a light socket for some time. Along with a PC fan to move air over it.
I just installed it in my 15cu ft chest freezer on a 2 stage ebay controller and it's works fine at keeping that warm.

However, to answer your question. I think the candle warmer would probably work as long as you have some airflow. Without airflow, it might take quite a long time to actually work.

krazydave said:

I've used a 60w ceramic reptile heater that screws into a light socket for some time. Along with a PC fan to move air over it.
I just installed it in my 15cu ft chest freezer on a 2 stage ebay controller and it's works fine at keeping that warm.

However, to answer your question. I think the candle warmer would probably work as long as you have some airflow. Without airflow, it might take quite a long time to actually work.

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Thanks all for the info. Do you keep your fan running constantly or just when heating/cooling? I'm building the temp controller itself, so I have a lot of flexibility/control over how to implement this thing.

Also, for what it's worth, my temperature probe will actually be in the wort.

I leave the fan on all the time to help circulate the cold when the freezer kicks on.

I have two light bulbs, just unscrew one if the temp get too warm. I also cover the carboy so no light gets in.

krazydave said:

I've used a 60w ceramic reptile heater that screws into a light socket for some time. Along with a PC fan to move air over it.
I just installed it in my 15cu ft chest freezer on a 2 stage ebay controller and it's works fine at keeping that warm.

However, to answer your question. I think the candle warmer would probably work as long as you have some airflow. Without airflow, it might take quite a long time to actually work.

Click to expand...

+1

That's what I'm doing and it's great.

For about $80 you could get a king size waterbed heater that's digital controlled and made to keep a lot more then just 5 gallons warm.

you may have already solved this issue but what about a battery pad?

One like this one.

There are many different sizes and watts. I have 3 or 4 different ones on my car to keep it warm when it's -40 outside...
They're a direct plug in and the heat is instant. I wouldn't put it directly under your carboy but it would certainly provide heat and it would be very easy to switch on and off remotely...

I have a 7.2 cu ft chest freezer chamber with a Sanke inside. I started with a 100 watt bulb and that was way too hot and melted some plastic here and there, not to mention burning the bulb out from just knocking it around a little too hard.

Now I use 'Work Light' bulbs. My 2 are coated with silicon (I've seen other types of coatings too) and have yet to fail from a subtle bump. I believe they are 75 W. That is still completely good enough. I'd use a 50 even.

My probe is in the very center of 15 gallons. The bulb works better than the freezer in their respective directions.

Skagdog said:

you may have already solved this issue but what about a battery pad?

One like this one.

There are many different sizes and watts. I have 3 or 4 different ones on my car to keep it warm when it's -40 outside...
They're a direct plug in and the heat is instant. I wouldn't put it directly under your carboy but it would certainly provide heat and it would be very easy to switch on and off remotely...

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This looks pretty sweet. Has anyone tried one of these? I recently picked up a 7 cubic foot chest freezer that I'm going to use for a fermentation chamber. I built an ebay temp controller and hooked up one of the Brewers Edge space heaters from Williams Brewing this past weekend. It seems to work awesome...testing it with a 5 gallon bucket of water and it's holding 70F in an unheated garage with the weather getting into the low 20's this week. Anyway, the battery heater looks very similar and at more than twice the wattage it seems like it would get the job done. I might pick one of these up and stick it to the side opposite the Brewers Edge heater.

I use a 40 watt vanity light bulb. It keeps the temp up in the range I need it and the freezer kicks on and off to maintain it. Bulb, socket, & extension cord cost less than $5 at Lowes.

Would something like this Amazon.com: Lasko 754200 Ceramic Heater with Adjustable Thermostat: Home & Garden be safe? Or would you guys recommend I just do a light bulb? I'll usually have 3 buckets in there at a time, and I've got the ebay temp controller wired for dual-stage.

gunmetal said:

I have two light bulbs, just unscrew one if the temp get too warm. I also cover the carboy so no light gets in.

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+1. It cost me $10 for a small lamp. I bought a 25w and a 60w bulb depending on how much heating I need. I also got the red bulbs to reduce the light output and then I just put a towel around the carboy.

I use a brew belt.

microbusbrewery- i'm only thinking that this will provide heat without producing light. A temp controller would probably be easy to rig up with this and you wouldn't have a light turning on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off....It's 20 bucks but I've had one on my subaru since 08 and it's still hot as ever. Never have to wonder if the light has gone out, plus, why pay for electricity to produce light and heat when you can just produce heat. I know the cost is probably negligible...

How would you recommend using one of those battery pads? Like just setting it in the ferm chamber on the floor? Mount to the wall?

Wal-mart has a little $10 personal heater. I set it on low and plug it into my temp controller. Works like a champ. no so big the heat pours out and cheap enough to but big enough to keep my chamber at the right temp.

I simply used SWMBO's hair drier which I have plugged into an outlet that is wired from my love controller. SWMBO just asked where her hair drier is today.

turkeyjerky214 said:

How would you recommend using one of those battery pads? Like just setting it in the ferm chamber on the floor? Mount to the wall?

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That's how I'd recommend mounting it. The Brewers Edge space heater I have (looks very similar to the battery heater) comes with adhesive backing so you can stick it to the side of your ferm chamber and it takes up zero space. Maybe some double-sided tape could be used to mount a battery heater. I saw that my local autozone carries these. I might try to pick on up this weekend.

For all of you using light bulbs in your fermentation freezers, any risk of fire? I wanted to have a light that stayed on at all times and then have the compressor turn on and off to cool it down but then I thought that amount of heat could cause an issue, am I just worrying too much?

No more risk than having anything else electric in your freezer. Besides, I'm going to guess there's a breaker involved that would blow somewhere. Just make your plug hang and not sit on the freezer floor waiting for a puddle (duh.).

Any heat source you have on all the time with your compressor trying to combat is like asking you to backflip up Mount Everest. A 75W lightbulb will change the internal temperature of your chamber faster than your freezer will in the other direction. It's much easier to heat than it is to cool. If I wanted a light that was on all the time in my kegerator, it would be one that wasn't a heat source (like an LED). No, you need a dual stage controller like the LOVE TSS2 and you'll set it to hand off power from one to the other (with the appropriate margin of error that accounts for each sources thermal mass)..... that all means that your freezer will need to kick off before it actually reaches the temp it's supposed to because it will 'store' more 'cold' and overshoot the temp. The bulb wont cause it has no thermal mass and won't store much heat.

Sounds good. I'll just dual stage it with my BCS.

Skagdog said:

microbusbrewery- i'm only thinking that this will provide heat without producing light. A temp controller would probably be easy to rig up with this and you wouldn't have a light turning on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off....It's 20 bucks but I've had one on my subaru since 08 and it's still hot as ever. Never have to wonder if the light has gone out, plus, why pay for electricity to produce light and heat when you can just produce heat. I know the cost is probably negligible...

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Actually, as long as your ferm chamber is opaque, it doesn't matter if you're using a 60W light bulb or a 60W heating element, you're getting exactly 60W of heat from it. Conservation of energy. Once the light from the bulb bounces around a few times it gets absorbed as heat.

That said, light bulbs do burn out much more readily than heating elements, and you have to make sure your carboys are covered so no light gets in.

jagec said:

Actually, as long as your ferm chamber is opaque, it doesn't matter if you're using a 60W light bulb or a 60W heating element, you're getting exactly 60W of heat from it. Conservation of energy. Once the light from the bulb bounces around a few times it gets absorbed as heat.

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This. It's the first law of thermodynamics, really.

jagec said:

That said, [with] light bulbs [ ... ] you have to make sure your carboys are covered so no light gets in.

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Actually, it's easier to just cover the single, small and (semi-)permanent source of light rather than however many carboys which are constantly being moved in and out. One popular method is to mount the light bulb inside an aluminum paint can.

microbusbrewery said:

That's how I'd recommend mounting it. The Brewers Edge space heater I have (looks very similar to the battery heater) comes with adhesive backing so you can stick it to the side of your ferm chamber and it takes up zero space. Maybe some double-sided tape could be used to mount a battery heater. I saw that my local autozone carries these. I might try to pick on up this weekend.

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Did anyone try this? I am using a side by side frig and wonder if this will melt the inside of it if mounted. It has a glass self. Might half to build a shelf and cover it with some metal or something. Any thoughts?

Mac, I knew I would find my answer here, somewhere. I have been trying to decide how to heat 2 carboys in my chamber. I think I will make an open base for a glass ref. shelf for each carboy. Then attach that battery heater to the underside. Thanks man!

Gonefishin said:

Mac, I knew I would find my answer here, somewhere. I have been trying to decide how to heat 2 carboys in my chamber. I think I will make an open base for a glass ref. shelf for each carboy. Then attach that battery heater to the underside. Thanks man!

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I bought a fermwrap from more beer and used double sided tape to stick it to the back of the frig. It works pretty good. My frig is outside and I have brewed since it really got cold but I think it will be fine

$8 mini space heater from Walmart plugged into the heat side of an inkbird controller that runs my chest freezer-turned-fermentation chamber. Works like a champ.

shaky6 said:

$8 mini space heater from Walmart plugged into the heat side of an inkbird controller that runs my chest freezer-turned-fermentation chamber. Works like a champ.

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Having had a fire in my first ferm chamber caused by a smal space heater I’ve found that the ceramic bulbs used for reptile enclosures works very well. No light is emitted and no coil to catch on fire.

Odd that would happen since the atmosphere in a ferm chamber is mostly CO2 after fermentation begins.

shaky6 said:

Odd that would happen since the atmosphere in a ferm chamber is mostly CO2 after fermentation begins.

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The only thing that seems to have prevented a major conflagration was the temp controller. It cut off the power.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P7U259C/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Velcro tape on the back wall of my 7.2cu ft chest freezer... works like a charm, and only $12.

shaky6 said:

Odd that would happen since the atmosphere in a ferm chamber is mostly CO2 after fermentation begins.

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No it isn't, fairly obviously. Unless your ferm chamber is hermetically sealed and has its own airlock, that is.

I use a 25w reptile cord heater. Works perfectly and is designed for humid environments

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