Speidel Fermenter

Yeast & Fermentation
1

Good morning all:

I have a 30L Speidel fermenter and I was wondering how one would heat this thing up? I have temp control on the cool side and to an extent, temp control on the heat side.

I use an electric heating pad placed inside my chest freezer and I can get the temp of the fridge up, but wanted to dial it in a little better. I was thinking a fermWrap heater, but wasn’t too sure if that would fit around this.

Any suggestions on how to dial in the heat?

2

I use a brew belt to warm mine up when needed. http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew … AjOU8P8HAQ

I go super low tech and just use a simple plug in timer to control it. If I do nothing to insulate the fermentor and heat at a 50% duty cycle (on an hour, off an hour) I get about 5 degrees above ambient in the beer. The large thermal mass of the 6 gallons of beer regulate the temperature swings.

3

Thanks flip. I like the brew belt idea as it is inexpensive and looks to fit the Speidel 30L well. I am going to order it today. The problem that I ran into with my electric heating pad was that it was cutting off too soon and made my DA rest a nightmare.

4

Mine came with 2 different length springs, between those two springs I’ve been able to fit it on 5 and 6 gallon better bottles, 5, 6 and 6.5 gallon glass carboys, 6.5 gallon buckets, the larger wine buckets and also my 30 L Speidel. :lol: Realizing I’ve got a lot of fermentation vessels.

5

They sell heating pads without auto-shutoff. I got mine at CVS for like $10.

6

[quote=“andymag”]Good morning all:

I have a 30L Speidel fermenter and I was wondering how one would heat this thing up? I have temp control on the cool side and to an extent, temp control on the heat side.

I use an electric heating pad placed inside my chest freezer and I can get the temp of the fridge up, but wanted to dial it in a little better. I was thinking a fermWrap heater, but wasn’t too sure if that would fit around this.

Any suggestions on how to dial in the heat?[/quote]

What yeast are you using? A different strain may be the (easy) solution.

7

For this particular batch I used Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager. I went with the BrewBelt and switched to a Ohmbrew Fermistat temp controller (has the ability to control a heat source as well). I guess my JC A-19 has been relegated to the garage fridge…

8

Is there any reason the light bulb in a paint can technique would not work? I’m planning on picking up a speidel or 2 next month. I’m hoping my current setup won’t pose any problems. I don’t see how it will, but curious none the less.

9

I would imagine that that light bulb in a can would work. I just very limited space in my freezer. and wouldn’t want to put that contraption too close to my plastic fermenter.

Other than that, I think that is a very manageable solution to warming up wort.

10

I use a small travel size blow drier on low that I have wired into my temperature controller. This is for my garage fridge that I keep my serving kegs and bottles in.

I keep my kegs at 42 and the drier easily keeps up even when it’s sub zero outside and absolutely no problems overshooting my set point.