Temp control?

Any suggestions for keeping a fermenter warm enough in a garage when the weather turns cooler? My fermentation chamber does great at cooling in the summer, but it has no heating gear.

If you can change the fan to be turned on in a cold condition, you can just run a 20 watt lightbulb in the old cooling chamber. You just need to be certain the bulb will never be able to touch the foam.

A heating pad works great. You know, the kind old folks us on their backs. I got one at Walgreens for about $12, used an old belt to "tie" it to the fermenter and covered the whole thing with an old sweat shirt. I was doing lagers so I only need to keep it above 40 or so, but the low setting worked fine for that. I suspect the higher setting would keep things in the ale range, depending on your ambient temperature.

yeah i'd just rig a light bulb or a heating pad on a basic lamp timer. trial and error will help you determine the on/off cycles.

Actually, if you place the fermenter inside during the daytime and close it up it'll be isolated from the outside air temp and not affected by the temperature change at night, right?

I have the same problem you do. Right now I'm using a 25watt lightbulb inside my fermentation freezer, and its working well enough.

You should take up lagering.... that is probably the best thing to do... it doesn't freeze in there correct? It just gets very close? I would lager.

Send it down to me, in Miami winter is a chilly 90F

My basement was getting a little too cool a couple of weeks ago, so I put the carboy into a storage bin (like a roughneck, you know the ones you put decorations or baby cloths or whatever in) and dropped in an aquarium heater. I kept an eye on the temp until I knew what the heater was doing and everything worked out fine.

One note, if you submerge your adhesive strip thermometer, you will ruin it. Keep it above water level.

I use a large Rubbermaid storage container full of water and a heating pad as well. I regulate the temperature by the amount of overlap of the container on top of the heating pad.

OBTW. I have been dunking all of my stick on thermometers in the water. All of mine have come back to life after drying out.