Brew belt

I left my brew belt on all day. Got home and the airlock is going crazy. Is this good or bad?? Did I ruin my beer??

what temp is/was it at? and what yeast are you using

Living in the frozen north as I do, my basement temperature rarely goes above 60 in the winter, so I tend to leave the brew belt on all the time once the initial fermentation has started, and it maintains my brew at 65 to 68. I'm still trying to get the timing right, though. If I put it on too soon after pitching the yeast I get a blow out, but if I wait too long the temperature drops too much and fermentation stalls. Fermentation is exothermic, so putting the belt on too soon in the early very active stages gets the temperature well up into the 70's.

It was over the stick on temp. A coopers yeast.

Well you didn't "ruin" your beer, the only thing I can say is you won't know how much the high fermentation temp affected the flavor until you bottle it and find out; RDWHAHB.

Get a temp controller and then you can plug the Bly into it and set the desired temp and it will turn in and off as necessary

duboman said:

Get a temp controller and then you can plug the Bly into it and set the desired temp and it will turn in and off as necessary

Click to expand...

What duboman said.

You can build a temperature controller pretty cheaply and easily using instructions from one of the STC-1000 threads over on the DIY forum.

I control temperature in my beers by putting a brew belt on the fermenter and putting my fermenter in a chest freezer. I plug the brew belt into the hot side and the chest freezer into the cold side of my STC-1000 unit. I put the probe from the STC-1000 against the fermenter and hold it in place with a doubled-up piece of a backpacking sleeping pad that is secured with a couple of bungee cords.

Using this setup my beers ferment at 18C (+/- 0.5C) all year round.

Total cost of my temperature control system: ~$290CDN. I probably could have done it a lot cheaper if I had of got the freezer second hand but I didn't want the hassle and bought it new.

Guess I will wait and see what it taste likes. Will tell you in a month

I finally got around to building a temp controller (STC-1000, got it for like $20 on amazon and cannibalized an old extension cord to wire it, then just shoved it all in a shoe box). with the brew belt and wrapping my fermenters in a blanket I can keep things at a comfortable 67* even though our basement is around 50-55, and I don't have to worry about it overshooting. you don't need the freezer if the ambient is lower than your target temperature, and IMO spending the $30 and the hour or so to wire it all together is *so* worth it in the end.