Seedling heat mat?

[YoungBerry]

So I live in Wyoming, and my apartment rarely gets above 60F on a warm day (boo expensive heating). Well, that doesn't work all that great for brewing (and my heaters are the hot water pipe type, so I can't reliably store anything near them safely, or in the dark), and I was wondering if anyone had had any luck with those nifty little heat mat designed to help seedlings grow. They're designed to stay on relatively constantly, and they are waterproof. I figure that I could stick one in the closet with some wine as it goes through its process, and it would help provide the needed heat.

I'm also wondering if it might act like a mini stove and do bad cooking things to the wine as well.

 

[android]

it's the same concept as using a heating pad or 'brew belt', so i don't see why it wouldn't work. you might also consider getting a tub of water and an aquarium heater to control fermentation temperature. there are a bunch of folks on this site who use that method and seem happy with the results.

 

[YoungBerry]

Unfortunately, I don't have room in my apartment for a tub of water, unless it is my bathtub. I'm going to do single gallon batches of wine for this exact reason.

 

[MBasile]

I've used the aquarium heater method for carbonating bottled beer with good results. I used a large rubbermaid container with 24 bottles in it. I'd imagine you could put whatever your fermenting the wine in, in a bucket, fill the bucket with water, and stick the heater in that. I attached my heater to an empty bottle and stuck it in the middle of the tub.

 

[android]

Unfortunately, I don't have room in my apartment for a tub of water, unless it is my bathtub. I'm going to do single gallon batches of wine for this exact reason.

definitely try the seedling heater, just make sure you have some sort of temperature gauge so it doesn't get out of hand.