Brewing Master

Question:

Please excuse what may be a incredibly dumb set of questions. I am a homebrewer more than a vintner so i was wondering: A) Can these be used in beer making as well?

Appropriate fermentation temperature is critical in beer, and is very much dependent on the style of beer, and type of yeast you plan to use. Before you go applying heat to achieve a certain temperature, be certain that you actually need it. For example, if your fermenting area is in the low 60’s, virtually any ale yeast  will produce good results there. If it is in the mid-50’s, you can get liquid ale strains that work well at that temperature. If it is in the 45-50 range, thank your lucky stars and get brewing some lagers. Now, there are a lot of generalizations in the above. This is a fairly complex topic. Very few beers (perhaps some Belgian styles and I assume you are not making those) benefit from temperatures above the high 60’s. If you are looking to use a heat belt to get your wort temp into the 70’s, you are only reducing the quality of your brew. Brian

Response:

Living in the mid Great White North, I need to use a heater belt to keep the temperature up. I have a belt that does the trick but does anybody know how to make an inexpensive one. I’d like to have two or maybe even three on the go at any given time, so making one that works would be a great help.

I bought one of the belts but made a device to vary the heat output which could be adapted to other ideas such as the light bulbs.  I picked up a light dimmer and a plug receptacle and then hooked everything up in series so working the dimmer varies anything plugged into the receptacle. That way I can vary the heat output according to the temperature. Combined with one of those digital crystal strip thermometers on the side of the carboy, it’s a pretty good way to adjust the temperature. Just be careful of the power requirements. Most light dimmers that I checked have a 500 to 600 watt rating, plenty for a heat belt (20 watts) or most light bulbs. A friend that uses light bulbs put one under a milk crate and then put a cloth around the whole thing to hold the heat in. That sounded like a nice simple method. Don

Response:

Light bulb give off heat as a byproduct,  but their main purpose is to give off light at which they are fairly efficient.  Using light bulbs to heat with is probably fairly inefficient and over several months of use may cost more to operate than it would cost to buy something that would be designed to heat with. I would suggest looking into heat pads or the fish tank heaters which might be the best.  Some are not that expensive. Ray

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Living in the mid Great White North, I need to use a heater belt to keep the temperature up. I have a belt that does the trick but does anybody know how to make an inexpensive one. I’d like to have two or maybe even three on the go at any given time, so making one that works would be a great help. thx Martin

Response:

Actually, incandescent light bulbs are very inefficient as lighting devices. I believe it is around 25%, but it could be 35%. It’s been a LONG time since I went to electronics school. Their incancescence makes them very suitable as heaters since a lot of the light output is also infra-red. Painting them black also ensures that virtually no light escapes, but is converted to heat. Matt black is also the best colour for optimum thermal radiation. That makes them almost 100% efficient as heaters. Though if you had a fish tank heater, it’s gonna be a lot better because of the regulator. For reference, my fish are extremely happy in 50 litres and a 100W heater, at 26