New at brewing

[Newbrew]

Hello everyone I have decided I need another hobby and can’t think of one better than beer. I am currently converting a side by side fridge to a freezer side kegerator and a fridge side fermentation chamber which led me to this site. I’m trying to determine what to use for heat on the fridge side. I was thinking a Matt taped to the back wall? I want to disperse the heat if possible to ferment two batches at once. I can also use wraps on the carboys but don’t want to add too much power load. Any advice would be great.

 

[fluketamer]

i always think of fermetnation side as cold just not as cold as serving. yet i see alot of people using these type of things for heating :

what are you guys fermetnign so warm?

are you using kvieik yeast or something

 

[redrocker652002]

Most everything I have fermented thus far has been in the 65 to 68 degree range. My little dorm fridge usually stays in that range unplugged so have not really needed much heat. But, when I do I simply take an old heating blanket and wrap it around my bucket. I plug it into my Inkbird temp controller and that usually does the trick. Not sure if that will put out enough heat for you, but that's been my way a few times.

 

[Deadalus]

The seedling heating mats that I use and that work just fine are only 20W. I haven't been using them in my ferm chamber, just for ales when the basement is colder, wrapped around a carboy. Very small load even for two but if you needed to you could perhaps run an extension to another circuit. You wouldn't need much wattage in the ferm chamber, I have read about others just using an incandescent bulb.

 

[wallyLOZ]

I've used a heat mat as described above. It never got cold enough in my basement to activate the heat cycle so after about ten batches I mothballed it. Basement is about 65-67 during the winter. YMMV. Let us know what you end up choosing or if you skip the heat mat. Cheers.

PS: Welcome to HBT.

 

[Newbrew]

I went with fern wrap and it’s working great I am having trouble however getting my fans to work. I might have a problem with the switch on the controller I’m not entirely sure. I have the heater coming on and off as expected and I have the fans wired the same way and they don’t come on when the controller goes to cool mode.

 

[Lampman]

Nice idea