Hemlock Home Brewing Kombucha Heating Wrap - Fermentation Heater Mat Pad with Temperature Control

Used for about a year (mostly during winter) to brew my kombucha, feed/prepare my ginger bug for sodas, and keeping my sourdough starter active when out of the fridge. It was a bit small for my *large scale kombucha setup but for >1 gallon it should work fine. For the ginger bug soda and sourdough starter it was plenty big enough and the multiple heat settings were perfect for everything i used it for, its very verstile. The temperature sticker is perfect and a life saver, being able to monitor the temperature and progress has never been easier. For what its worth, i would say you should get it if you live somewhere that gets cold, it's not too expensive too so its a good tool to have early on in your fermenting journey. Lastly, using its estimated watt/hour usage listed in the product description, i calcualated that on the high end it would cost $10.50 to run it for a year and $8.27 on the low end, so don't worry about your eletricity cost going up.

A game changer in winter! My house is typically 69 degrees f in winter time and that's just a bit cool for brewing. My first fermentation would take up to two weeks. This warm blanket keeps the brew at a constant temperature - includes easy to read thermometer. Switch has low medium high - simple to use and very effective.

Fits my gallon jar, easy to use, compact for storage, works very well. My kombucha stays at a steady perfect fermenting temperature and the kombucha has turned out better than ever. Great for use when the temperature drops in the winter, or if you use air conditioning in the summer. I recommend this product.

Came quick and works like a charm.

I almost sent this item back. I bought this to use with my kombucha cistern, and although it does not fit the cistern, it still works to keep my brew at the proper temperature. The straps are too short for my chonky cistern, but I have a stand the cistern sits upon, so I propped the heating strip on the stand and wrapped it around a portion of the cistern. It took a while to get up to speed, but my temperature strip indicates it is working!

This wrap is awesome! My kitchen stays cold year around and my kombucha was pretty flat the first week, but when I got this on my jar and it warmed my kombucha up I finally got some fizz! My third batch is already bubbly and that was in the first couple of days. It definitely loves the warmth this wrap provides. The size is great for a gallon jar, but I may switch to a two gallon at some point and I am unsure if this will provide the same warmth needed. Overall it was definitely worth the money considering how happy the scoby is with the warmth. I imagine it would work flattened or wrapped around other fermenting items such as sourdough, kefir, etc.

I have been a home brewer (wine/beer) for over 30 years. I began making Kombucha a few years ago and have been making one gallon batches of it just using room temperature in a warm furnace room as the temperature control. As might be expected the results varied due to having inconsistent temperature control. I recently purchased this heater which is specifically designed for kombucha and am extremely pleased with the results. The design is excellent. It was designed by a home brewer who obviously thought out solutions to the common design problems. It fits a standard one gallon jar and leaves a vertical gap in the wrap around heater to be able to easily read the vertical stick-on temperature strip that comes with the unit. The wrap-around heater element is held with a velcro strap and has three selectable heat levels plus an off level with an easy to read indication of the level. It has two indicator lights. One green to show that you have line power attached and one red to indicate that the heater has been turned on. Using a power meter it drew 12 watts on high, 9 watts on medium and 4 watts on low. At the mid level heat setting this heater kept my one gallon batch at a perfectly constant 82 deg over 7 days even though it was in a room where the air temperature varied from 67 deg to 72 deg over the course of a day. The batch finished to my taste in 7 days compared to the usual 10 to 12 days before the I used the heater. An excellent product. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in making consistent kombucha quickly One thing I would suggest to the designer/seller - the very useful suggestions for how to use the three heat settings to achieve specific results are printed on the side of the packaging box. I almost threw the box out without reading it. I would strongly suggest that you print that info on an insert and put it in the box

I bought this because the temperature in my house is in the mid-60s, but kombucha likes a temperature of 75-85°F. The wrap was perfect - except for one thing. When I opened the package, I saw that the strap that holds the wrap in place was severed. I was very disappointed. The package had a business card in it which said to contact Glen if something wasn't working out, so I took a picture of the strap and sent it to him. Within a few hours (on a Sunday, no less!) Glen wrote me back, and said he would send me a replacement immediately. And he did! I was blown away. I had expected, at most, to be sent a replacement strap. So on to the heating pad itself - the strap holds the pad nicely onto the jar, and is easy to adjust if I want to peek into the jar. It also came with a stick-on thermometer so I can monitor the temperature without having to keep sticking a thermometer into the kombucha (and potentially introducing a contaminant) . The only complaint I have about this arrangement is that to read the thermometer, I HAVE to loosen the strap, since the strap covers the most relevant part of the temperature strip. Not a big deal, though. I find that the "low" setting keeps the brew at 72°F in my 64°F kitchen. The "high" setting very nicely gets it into the officially preferred range, but I find that 72° is adequate. The brewing goes a bit slower, but this way I don't start making too much kombucha! The wrap also came with pH test strips specially set up for kombucha, which I find very useful. I'm not sure if the wrap always comes with the strips, or if that was a special offer. Anyway, I like them. The only suggestion I would offer is for the electric cord to be attached in the middle of the wrap, instead of at the end. I have the wrap around my jar with the opening in the front, so I can more easily see the thermometer. That puts the cord in the front, which is a bit unsightly. If it exited the wrap in the middle, the cord could remain out of sight. But that is a minor comment. In general, this does exactly what I wanted it to do, and I can't say enough about Glen's customer service!

This is being sold on Amazon UK however not only does it arrive with a US plug but the required voltage is 120V making it completely unuseable for connecting to mains power here in the UK. I understand that products are not always suitable for all markets and in this case either the product should not appear on Amazon in countries where it is incompatible, or there should be clear and prominent labelling within the description advising prospective customers of this fact. So having wasted a lot of time waiting for this to arrive, I now have to order (and wait for an alternative product) and arrange to drop this item off for return.

Works well, recommended

I have had the heater for just six months and it no longer heats. On their packaging they say just reach out to us on Amazon and we’ll make it right. But apparently if you’re not living in the US, and I’m in Canada, there’s no way to contact them through Amazon. Not only that, but they don’t appear to have any public contact information. I’ve looked all over the place, and there doesn’t appear to be any way to get in touch with them directly. So if they’re going to be selling this unit outside the US, they better find a way to support their customers. I bought this because it has very high ratings, but both the product and the service in my case are a huge disappointment.

Like the product, it arrived incredibly quickly. A week earlier than expected, which was great. HOWEVER it is designed for use with US 120VAC 60Hz mains in mind which means it is a potential fire hazard for a UK customer. You should add words to that effect to the advert.

Le tapis fonctionnait bien mais il est déjà brisé donc aucune chaleur après 6 mois.