Heating Tube for Fermenter Fridge

[Kye]

thought I'd post the early results on this if anyone interested. I went for the Toolstation 40w tube heater, link below, and thanks to @eyuptm for the recommendation. worked just fine on a test up to 23C in a 170cm tall larder fridge and I've just fermented my 1st 23l batch in there at 20C. all went fine, it's quite slow to warm up so in these cold conditions so when the temp drops it often keeps going down maybe 0.5C past the setting on the inkbird so I found I adjusted 0.5C back up vs the required temp to keep it in the range I wanted. For £15 can't beat it really. See pic, managed to route the cable through the outlet at the back of the fridge so only the thin inkbird wire goes between door seal. I did have to change the plug head on the heater though as it was moulded and had to be removed in order to route this way.

https://www.toolstation.com/dimplex-thermostatic-tubular-heater-ipx4/p17033

 

[jeg3]

I recently upgraded from a plastic FV with a sponge sellotaped to the side insulating the inkbird probe to a SS Brewbucket with a thermowell. The rate of temperature change when heating with the new bucket is much slower because the inkbird is measuring something else. It took about two hours to increase from 19.4 to 20.0 in the brewbucket, it used to take about half an hour with the plastic FV

 

[muppix]

Just throwing it out there, but has anyone tried using a vivarium heat mat via an external thermostat? I've been keeping snakes for around 25 years now and it strikes me that these would be ideal for controlling the temperature in a fermentation chamber since they:

• Don't take up much room
• Provide an even temperature across their entire surface
• Have no dangerous hot spots, and
• Come in a variety of shapes and sizes

One thing you might have to watch out for however is the fact that they radiate infra-red energy which then warms the objects that the energy hits, but if your thermostat sensor is close to that object (i.e. FV) and the chamber is closed then your thermostat shouldn't have any difficulty doing its job.