New Product! Cool Brewing Fermentation Cooler

hopbrad said:

it works great for me. i rotate one bottle in the morning and one at night.
During the first 2 days I rotate a gallon jug to keep it in the low-mid 60's
then days 3-10 i rotate liters, it keeps in around 68.
then i let it go to room temp.
my house temp hovers mid 70s at night, low 80s during the day.
great product for warm climates!
up next i will put in 2 carboys and see how it holds temps for that.

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it fits 2 carboys fine. the Motts juice gallon jug fits better than the 1 gallon milk/water jugs. and then a mix of 3-4 various 1 or 2 liter bottles. so i keep them rotating and keeps my temps down nicely.

condensation occurs so the bottom of the bag can become a little scumy.
next batch i will line the bottles with towels

hopbrad said:

condensation occurs so the bottom of the bag can become a little scumy. next batch i will line the bottles with towels

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+1 Forgot to say that myself.... I also wrapped the frozen water bottles in small hand towels to help with condensation

I feel like using ice jugs that are in direct contact with the (glass) carboy will create some inconsistency in wort temperature. Does this not have any affect on yeast health? Perhaps the inner wort temp is mid 60's but will the outer areas that are in contact with the ice be too cold? Maybe wrapping the ice jugs in a towel would help round out the cooling effect, but would that still keep the wort at proper temp?

Anyway to change your site around so that promo codes work on international checkout?? With the international shipping it brings the total cost to $100, so any $$ I can save is great...thanks!!

403Brewer said:

Anyway to change your site around so that promo codes work on international checkout?? With the international shipping it brings the total cost to $100, so any $$ I can save is great...thanks!!

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Thanks for letting us know about this! We will check it out and get the promo codes working with international checkouts!

I will PM some immediate solutions!

Cheers,

H-ost said:

I love it, PM will be sent in a sec.

Any chance there will be an option with a light heating coil inside the lining? Seems like it would be easy to throw a temp controller on there and it would open up different locations that someone could ferment in. Say you have plenty of room in the garage but only on the concrete floor and the garage is WAY to cold anyway. It would raise the temp and hold it efficiently with the insulation of the bag already.

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Could always use a hot water bottle instead of a bottle of ice.

Could I get a promo code pm'd? Also i'm shipping international. Has this been fixed?

SmithsonBrewer said:

Could I get a promo code pm'd? Also i'm shipping international. Has this been fixed?

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Hello,

Our international shipping checkout is up and working great. For shipping to Canada please do not select international.

Please simply select Canada as the state at checkout and it will apply the appropriate shipping charges.

Please feel free to email us at [email protected] or PM on here if we can help with anything else.

Cheers,

Got my bag as a christmas present. Sure is a nice change from the previous methods I was using. Feel that I can now make a better beer plus I can brew in the warmer months. A couple of frozen liter bottles to start then taper off to one bottle towards the end works great. Fantastic product!

HefeHood said:

Got my bag as a christmas present. Sure is a nice change from the previous methods I was using. Feel that I can now make a better beer plus I can brew in the warmer months. A couple of frozen liter bottles to start then taper off to one bottle towards the end works great. Fantastic product!

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Thank you for the feedback! It is awsome to hear our cooler was a gift well received for you!

Cheers!

Any sales coming up? I'm trying to convince the wifey how important this is..

Great looking product!

Mine just showed up today. I'll say, out of the box, it's exceeded my expectations. It even fits my 13 gallon fermenter with some room for ice jugs too. Ready for warmer weather now!

Just ordered one through MoreBeer. Free shipping on orders over 59 dollars.. this one was 59.95!

After 1 1/2 years, I am still using the cool brewing bags. I just won a gold medal in our local competition using them... They get the job done, that's for sure!

BeerKillLogic said:

After 1 1/2 years, I am still using the cool brewing bags. I just won a gold medal in our local competition using them... They get the job done, that's for sure!

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That is awesome to hear! Congrats on the gold medal! What was the beer?

My email is [email protected]. Please send me more info.

Their customer service is top notch! Had a problem with the zipper on mine, contacted them and they sent a new one out via FedEx. I had it in two days.
As for the cooler itself, it does exactly what it says it will do!
Its a top quality piece of gear at a great price!

Got one on my ss brew bucket. Working great on its first batch.

We've got a demo of this set up in the store. If you're in the Atlanta area, stop by and check it out!


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mnherky said:

Got one on my ss brew bucket. Working great on its first batch.

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I use mine with my SS Brew Bucket too. Plenty of room for jugs of ice. And, that SS Brew Bucket keeps a constant temperature much easier.

I've got two bags and use them all year long to keep a steady temp.

can you add water to this or is it enough to use 2 liter bottles. Just trying to see if hitting a target temp of 52 degrees is viable

I never took mine that low, but you can definitely add water

lotusworker said:

can you add water to this or is it enough to use 2 liter bottles. Just trying to see if hitting a target temp of 52 degrees is viable

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Good question! You can use water however it is not needed in most cases to get down to 52 degrees.

We have tested down to 38 degrees F in a 68 degree F room for lagering without the use of water. We have found that our coolers work great up to around 30-35 degrees F cooler than the room temperature. In most cases a 1 gallon frozen jug will keep around a 10 degree F drop over the room temperature for around 24 hours.

Just used my brew bag for the second time for my pale ale... Steady at 67F with changing the 1 liter water bottle every 12 hours. Awesome buy!! Good job guys!


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First brew I used this with, it worked great. I tried using it again on Sunday, but with 2 bottles and 3 small ice packs I could not get the carboy temperature down at all, it didn't change in 6 hours and was stuck at 75. By that point fermentation had begun and I was forced to put it in my old swamp cooler to drop temps. Any idea what I did wrong? I pitched a bit high, I know, but I don't know why them temps would not drop at all.

I found that puting my carboy in a milk crate inside the bag and puting the frozen water bottles in the crate right up against the carboy works best. (smart water bottles work perfectly because they are narrower and taller). In addition, it is best to wait until you have the carboy cooled down in the bag before you pitch the yeast, rather than pitch and try to bring the temperature down after the fact.

pvpeacock said:

I found that puting my carboy in a milk crate inside the bag and puting the frozen water bottles in the crate right up against the carboy works best. (smart water bottles work perfectly because they are narrower and taller). In addition, it is best to wait until you have the carboy cooled down in the bag before you pitch the yeast, rather than pitch and try to bring the temperature down after the fact.

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I pitched too soon, I had only realized after I pitched so yes that was my fault. I usually don't pitch that high. Thanks for that tip. I did have the bottles/ice packs what I thought was close enough, but I guess not.

Having the frozen bottles touching the carboy will definitely get the temperature lower quicker, but I find having the bottles not touching the carboy is better for keeping the temperature consistent. There is a similar system on the market that uses a jacket and a pump along with a temperature monitor and controller for more accurate temperature control. Cool Brewing could easily put together a system with their product like this, and I'd be quite interested in such a system, but if they don't maybe I'll just get the parts and set up such a system on my own. While the system as it stands is good and and very affordable, I use Conan yeast, which is very temperature sensitive, and have had some issues in situations where I went over 24 hours before rotating out the bottles. I end up erring on the side of keeping the temperature too low and have occasionally had my temperature drop 10 degrees lower than where I would have ideally wanted it.

lotusworker said:

can you add water to this or is it enough to use 2 liter bottles. Just trying to see if hitting a target temp of 52 degrees is viable

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I'll second what CoolBrewing said and say that you can definitely hit 52 pretty easily. As long as you chill your wort pretty low it should be no problem maintaining. I had a lager getting into the mid 40's and I actually had to keep it from getting much lower (using just 2-4 two-liter bottles)! The main thing is chilling your wort after the boil sufficiently. It gets more difficult to chill a 70 degree fermenter than a 55-60 degree one.

Use a 30" 1/2 x 1/2" square wood rod with two rebar end caps to make a support structure for the bag....it will sag and this makes it very stable...temps seem lower than I thought by testing it with carboy with water in it.

With my house temp around 75, I've had no problem using three one liter bottles to get the temp around 58... in fact, it was colder than I needed so I went to two one liter bottles... to get it around 62 or so.

I've had this bag for about two months now, so far the bag is great at maintaining temps. Definitely one of the best non fridge fermentation control methods. One thing I want to point out though is that the zipper for the bag is really delicate, the stitching on the zipper already started coming off and the zipper piece started to fall off. I had to bust out my tool kit to try to get the piece back on.

I would suggest the makers look into this, everything else about the bag is high quality except the zipper and stitching near the opening.


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snooby said:

I've had this bag for about two months now, so far the bag is great at maintaining temps. Definitely one of the best non fridge fermentation control methods. One thing I want to point out though is that the zipper for the bag is really delicate, the stitching on the zipper already started coming off and the zipper piece started to fall off. I had to bust out my tool kit to try to get the piece back on.

I would suggest the makers look into this, everything else about the bag is high quality except the zipper and stitching near the opening.


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Hello,

Thank you for the comments. We are sorry to hear this issue with the zipper on your cooler! We will look into this immediately with our manufacture to ensure this is not a repeated issue.

Cheers,

I'm looking forward to the summer temps to test this thing out more, but so far have really enjoyed it.
I cut myself a few 4" PVC pieces to fit over my airlocks based on bucket or carboy and they do a great job holding the bag up off the airlock. This past weekend, our club went to a festival. I took the bag with 4 cornys in it ( placed there vs hauling full). We sprinkled ice between them and it was awesome. Here's my test fit. Didn't even force it and the zipper worked fine.

Just want to chime in to say I'm the proud owner of a cool brewing cooler. I have a basement and in the winter I have to raise the temp using a water bath and aquarium heater since the basement drops down to around 60F. But in the summer, it gets to around 72F and it was a pain in the butt to have to constantly change out the ice bottles in a water bath and it let to big swings in temp and the ice would melt in a few hours, so it wasn't good when we were gone or overnight. So far the cool brewing cooler seems to be more stable. I only have 1 gal batch in there, so I only needed a couple 20 oz frozen water bottles to drop the temp down to 65F. So far so good!

Hey everyone -

Reading about how much luck everyone is having with these makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Fifteen hours after placing my 3 gallon better bottle carboy in the bag with two frozen 1 liter bottles I'm seeing no change in temp. I've taken measurements with both the brewometer at the top of the carboy and a probe thermometer placed on the side of the carboy.

How long has it taken before you guys start to see results? I know I still need to dial it in but I'm getting a little concerned as fermentation is starting to take off.

It should be faster than that. Stupid question, but you have the lid closed right? Other than that I got nothing because it's really just a big cooler, so nothing special is needed.

mtnagel said:

It should be faster than that. Stupid question, but you have the lid closed right? Other than that I got nothing because it's really just a big cooler, so nothing special is needed.

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Yes, lid is closed and sealed. The bag is being stored in a dark closet that has an ambient room temp of about 72-78F.

Is there any specific technique I should be using? I have the bottles placed against the carboy at the moment. Also, is too much extra space in the bag an issue considering I only have the one 3 gallon carboy in there?

Extra empty space would need to be cooled as well so it would affect the cooling capabilities... Maybe try 2 liter bottles. Also what temp was the wort when you put it in the bag? If it was really warm it would take extra time to cool.

mors said:

Extra empty space would need to be cooled as well so it would affect the cooling capabilities... Maybe try 2 liter bottles. Also what temp was the wort when you put it in the bag? If it was really warm it would take extra time to cool.

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Wort was 71F when placed in the bag. Fifteen hours later still 71F. I swapped out one of the bottles and added two more frozen ones and it seems to have helped a little, lowering it to 68F within a couple of hours.

I would try 2 liter bottles but am limited for space in my freezer. I have a small handful of 16oz bottles frozen as well that I can throw in. Not sure if I can do much about the extra space either except for putting an empty carboy in there. It's a pretty heavy duty bag and difficult to collapse any (except when empty, of course). I could try wrapping in bungee cords? Just not sure why I'm having so much more trouble then the rest of you guys seem to be having.