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Brew Belt?
The place where i've been leaving my bucket for fermenting is gonna be getting down to around 55-60 F with the colder weather rolling in. I looked online a bit and came across the Brew Belt and the Fermwrap Heater. The reviews looked pretty decent on the websites but i was wondering if anyone in here has had any experience with using either one, if one works better than the other, and how their experience was with using it. If i could get some first hand feed back from anyone about either or i'd greatly appreciate it.
If your ambient temps are constantly in the 50-60 range, then you could use a brew belt without too much concern for over temping the wort. I have use a brew belt in the past and still do on occasion. Just remember it has no real temp control (unless you attach it to a thermostat and temp probe). The brew belt on its own will push the temp up about 10-15 degrees.
You can sort of control the amount of rise you get based on how well you wrap the whole thing up. I use old towels. IF you wrap it in 6 towels the beer will likely go to 75F, not good. I'd recommend starting with one towel and seeing what the temp of the beer is. Add another towel until it gets to the 68-70 range. This is where a stick on thermo becomes helpful.
One last word of caution. In theory you are not supposed to add the brew belt to a glass carboy. The intense temp at the belt can make the glass weak across that point so if you tap the glass to hard it might shatter right where the belt is. I get around this by putting a light towel around the carboy then putting the brew belt on. If you are using a bucket you can go with a direct contact setup.
It takes experimention, but it works fairly well.
I'd rather have a fermwrap and a two stage controller. Maybe in the future.
If you are only getting one, my choice would be the fermwrap. I have both, and I think the wrap is more versatile. Along with all of things brewchez says, you can also control the amount of surface area contacted. And much safer for glass.
I have even used the wrap to heat 2 better bottles at the same time. I use the brew belt now just in a pinch if I have 3 hot ferments at the same time. Mostly though I use a temp controlled chamber.
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