Water bath?

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hypnoticmonkey

hypnoticmonkey

Landlord.
Joined
Jul 20, 2010
Messages
610
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2
Location
Solihull.
So, in September last year I moved in with my girlfriend, in her flat in Solihull and in March we moved into a little house.

SWMBO doesn't really want my homebrew kit in the house (tbh, it's not really big enough anyway) and so I've been relegated to the garage. That's fine in this mild-to-warm weather, but even in March when we moved in, it was pretty chilly in there.

So I'm looking at heating options. Obviously heat mats are one option, and I probably will get one of those and try it. However, today while I was in the garage checking on my brews, I noticed a big plastic tub, big enough to fit 4 DJs:

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I'm wondering what your thoughts on turning this into a water bath might be?

Could I get an aquarium heater to heat it up?

Will it need a lid on it to keep it from leaking heat out of the top?

Would a piece of oversized wood with airlock sized holes in the top, appropriately placed, be an adequate lid, if so?

Anything else you have to suggest?
 
In my experience that will work fine as a water bath with an aquarium heater. Having a lid on top will avoid heat loss and bring your electricity bills down too :) You might be able to find a lid that will give a proper snug fit at a DIY shop or something near you, or perhaps there already is one in the garage somewhere, those kind of storage boxes tend to come with snap closing lids. You would just need to drill holes for the airlocks and the aquarium heater's lead.
 
Roughly equivalent to what I use, but mine's more square.
I cobbled together an enclosing box so that I could wrap it in expanded polystyrene foam for insulation, a sheet of same with demi-sized holes for an insulating lid.
There's a thread with pics somewhere...
If insulated reasonably well you can use a pretty low powered heater. Just wrapping with bubble wrap or something would do, probably.
Pop a few drops of bleach in the water, it's being kept warm and Things will get in it...
 
oldbloke said:
If insulated reasonably well you can use a pretty low powered heater.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking four demijohns = 4 x 4.5l = 18l, then the water to fill up the bucket...

Any reason why one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SuperFish-Nano- ... ium+heater

A 50W heater for 0-30l, wouldn't do the trick?

Or would you recommend a 100W heater?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i'd go for the bigger heater i'm sure yo'll have more than 12 litres of water surrounding the DJs
 
Just checked... it takes 16l of water to fill around the edges, so you're probably right about the bigger one.

The only other thought I've got is that fish tanks are usually glass fronted all the way around, and I am planning to box and insulate this one, which might mean I can get away with it.

I'll have a look into the different heaters and reviews etc but any other thoughts from the gang would be much appreciated.

HM
 
if i was you i would buy a 100w one. look on ebay as there cheap. i use a 100w in a builders trub and it does the job just fine. it was from a seller in china and was from what i remember £10 / £12. with free post. only took a week to arrive.
 
mickthetrick said:
if i was you i would buy a 100w one. look on ebay as there cheap. i use a 100w in a builders trub and it does the job just fine. it was from a seller in china and was from what i remember £10 / £12. with free post. only took a week to arrive.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm also thinking a higher power heater might not need to work as 'hard' as a lower power one, and might work out cheaper in the long run!

I'll have another poke around on amazon, I have a £25 gift voucher for Amazon, so it makes sense for me to buy it there...
 
I was told (for aquariums) that the general rule of thumb for these heaters is 1W for 1L of water thats being heated. so 50W will heat up 50L of water anything above that you could have problems.
 
I'd consider going for a pond heater rather than an aquarium model mainly because they are metal jacketed rather than glass . . . Yeah I've broken a few glass ones . . . I think you can now get metal ones for Aquaria now to deal with aggressive fish

I find a 50W one more than adequate to heat my water bath (30L in a 100L pot with a 25L FV stood in it).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have used two aquarium heaters in that kind of set up (1 was 50W and one 100W), one at each end. But I did have a control unit with a probe in the centre of the bath.

My 50W used to struggle to get an even heat when in the trug on its own when it was REALLY cold in the shed, as in <5C, even though there was less than 50L in there (FV plus water in bath).

I never tried a lid or insulation, which sounds like a good plan!
 
Never tried anything like this, but insulation on it's own would keep the water pretty warm (yeast does kick out some heat itself!)...add in a 50W heater and it should be fine.
As for the "100W won't need to work as hard", this is true, but the optimal efficiency of the device will be at maximum (or near max) load, so if you're using a 100W heater at 50W, it won't be producing as much thermal energy as a 50W will at 50W.
 
I bought two aquarium heaters from Pond Solutions off Amazon, £15 for both with free delivery. One heater is a 25 watt which I submerge into a 5 litre Pet bottle full of must and a 50 watt heater for 5 gallon batches.

For both heaters I took the plugs off and put the cables through rubber bungs, then refitted the plugs, its not an air tight seal but works for me.
 
I had a similar challenge some time ago. My local plumbing merchant gave me an obsolete water tank insulating jacket which worked well but there is a risk of overkill. Fermentation generates heat and large quantities of insulated fermenting must in the shed turned out to be warmer than if kept inside the house, so it is wise to monitor the temperature, to ensure you don't kill the yeast.
 

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