Home Distiller

Hello all. I am forced to ferment in the basement (wife's orders). I have a hard time keeping my ferments up above 65f, and they often stall. Recently, I bought a small aquarium heater and have been very pleased with the temperature control. My only issue is that using the heater requires me to leave my lid sitting on top of my drum so I can fish the cord inside.

Does anyone have a good solution for getting the cord through the lid in an air tight fashion?

I cut a 3 sides of a rectagle shape the same size as the plug then folded the tab up cut a little notch out just big enough for the cord to fit tight. i pushed the plug though and folded the tab back down. you could silicon that but i didn't so i can adjust the element hight, bit of vas or some duct tape will make it fairly air tight and keep the germs out (i don't use an airlock on this one

So simple yet so affective. Thanks! I'll be doing this tonight.

Darth

Never tried the aquarium heater route,but I used to be in a similar situation and used heating pads under my ferment containers. Covered them with blankets and they stayed toasty warm. Just a idea for the future

I considered wrapping the barrels with blankets to keep some of that heat in. Also getting it off the cement floor should help.

Darth Father wrote:I considered wrapping the barrels with blankets to keep some of that heat in. Also getting it off the cement floor should help.

Sure will. I use an electric blanket when necessary.

tp

Look for a tub that is large enough to put the base of you fermenter in. Then put your fermenter in it and fill the tub with water. Put your aquarium heater in the water that is now surrounding the base of your fermenter. It will keep the whole thing at temp and be easier to clean.

If you find a tub that will fit under a 55 gallon barrel post it up. I could use one.

i had the same problem because of the same orders..."bring your booze stuff downstairs , and keep it there." pretty much what Brutal says...BUT:
buy yourself a large sturdy rubbermaid. make sure it's gonna fit more than one fermenter though (assuming you do small batches). I have two car boys in mine. the water goes up a bit more than half way. im using a fishtank SUBMERSIBLE heater for 40GAL. it works like a charm. its pretty key to have little pump (even a tiny cheap one) to circulate the water.
dont go cheap on it. most youll pay is 40$ and the good ones have a temp dial thats pretty bang on. different yeast have diff temps so its easy to control the atmosphere.

Got a bung, drilled an 1 1/8" hole in the bucket lid, cut off the end of the plug and bought a new plug at Ace. Drilled an appropriately sized hole in the bung to snugly fit the cord and slipped it through. reattached the new plug to the end of the cord and voila! Sealed and ready to rumble.

I gave up on mine as it wasn't heating the wash below it. It's better to wrap with lots of blankets and heat it from below. Two lamps in series are more reliable and have lower Watt density.

I use a 100 watt heating element for 55 gallon ferments. I put a SS washer on the heater so it doesn't float on the top, thus creating a large heat gradient. Works a treat. The top is only 1-2 degrees hotter than the bottom.

However, I have used an aquarium heater on an all plum fruit ferment and the cap burned onto the heater. It ruined 50 gallons of what would have otherwise been a great wash for brandy.

A while back I bought 4 nice aquarium heaters which I mounted through new bung holes in the fermenter lids with grommets around the cords to keep them air-tight. It worked alright, but you couldn't adjust the temperature setting without opening the lid and risking contaminating the wash, plus I found that cleaning up the lids afterwards became a bit unwieldly, so I took them out, plugged the holes, and went with the band type heaters which wrap around the outsides of my fermenters. Easy to take off and makes cleanup much easier. YMMV

I just have the lid resting on the cable, not air tight so wont get a blowout. Works perfect

Euphoria wrote: ... It worked alright, but you couldn't adjust the temperature setting without opening the lid and risking contaminating the wash ...

You can adjust them to their maximum, then use a controller like an STC 1000 to dial up your desired temperature. The STC 1000s also give you the option of running cooling fans or refrigeration for if ferments get too rampant.

Thanks Chris, but since changing over, I find that I really like, and prefer, the belly band heaters now that I have them. Now all I need to do is to figure out what to do with the four aquarium heaters?

What about getting an electric blanket?

So you fermenter will be warm at night.

Secale wrote:What about getting an electric blanket?

So you fermenter will be warm at night.

I use them.
Cut the elements out, wrap the blanket around the can for insulation, wind the elements around a grid, place the grid underneath the fermenter.
Control the temperature with an STC 1000 or similar, with the thermocouple in the wash.