Making a fermentation chamber

[Water_Wolf]

I am now the proud owner of a small, beat up hotpoint chest freezer from the 90's which I am going to use as a fermentation chamber. There's enough room in it for one fermenting bucket and not much else.

As I don't have any electronic or soldering experience I'm going with an Inkbird ITC-308 as a temperature controller (as has bighoppapump apparently so some of my questions have already been answered!)

The only way I can see of getting cables into the freezer will be to cut a little section through the door seal and then fill in the gaps around the cables as best I can. Does anyone forsee a problem with this?

What would be recommended for heating? A brew belt?

[Tom]

I've an old battered fridge that kept shorting out, so I just used it with a demijohn heater (about 20w) and an STC. Sometimes I put my stirplate in there too. That's three wires, including the temp probe. Granted two are slim 12v wires, one is a slimish cable like you'd get from a lamp from Argos. I open the door, put the stuff in the chamber, close the door, and if it doesn't quite seal I stick a bit of parcel tape over it. Zero problems, zero cutting. Try that first, before you go cutting anything.

[willk]

IIWY, I'd try closing the unit up with the Inkbird cables running OVER the seals to see if they bed in a bit.  If not, a small nick in the seal will resolve the matter.  Cold falls, heat rises, your access is from above.  If you are running the freezer, the cold will be fine.  I wrap the FV in bubble wrap and use a heater pad below the FV with the probe stuck tight to the FV sidewall. If I was expecting high temps (running compressor), I'd dispense with the bubble wrap.

[Water_Wolf]

I see some people use a water bath and an aquarium heater to warm their fermenter, any thoughts on this vs a brew belt / pad? I would need quite a specific sized bath to fit inside my space!

[Qs]

Tube heater is a good option.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Or soil heating cable. I use an old brew belt, but it can only lift the brew above ambient by so much, so winter saisons won't be the crazy fruit loops that I want