New Product! Cool Brewing Fermentation Cooler

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only using 1 liter bottles may be the issue. i use two 1 gallon jugs, usually old motts bottles. then once the wort gets in the mid 60's (which takes me about 24 hours) i then switch out 1 of the gallon jugs per day along with a 1 liter bottle. and will also throw in some smaller 16oz frozen bottles here and there.
also if you have enough water bottles to go around. leave the melted ones in there. eventho they arent frozen, they are still usually pretty cold and i feel like they keep the bag cooler too.
but all that said, my room temp is anywhere from 75-80 degrees. im suprised you are having issues.

edit - i also think it is staying around 71 bc your fermentation is creating heat.

bhowie4 said:
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.
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Review for this on my website in my signature. I love this product. I have had no trouble keeping my beer at 66-68 degrees. Perfect and hassle free.
 
bhowie4 said:
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.
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I haven't tried this product, but my experience with temperatures in general has been lots of heat generated during the lag phase. Even in a water bath, the fermometer often reads 6 degrees or more higher than the bath water temperature during the lag phase. Maybe you're fighting the heat generation.
 
hopbrad said:
only using 1 liter bottles may be the issue. i use two 1 gallon jugs, usually old motts bottles. then once the wort gets in the mid 60's (which takes me about 24 hours) i then switch out 1 of the gallon jugs per day along with a 1 liter bottle. and will also throw in some smaller 16oz frozen bottles here and there.
also if you have enough water bottles to go around. leave the melted ones in there. eventho they arent frozen, they are still usually pretty cold and i feel like they keep the bag cooler too.
but all that said, my room temp is anywhere from 75-80 degrees. im suprised you are having issues.

edit - i also think it is staying around 71 bc your fermentation is creating heat.
Click to expand...

I agree with Brad, seems like you just aren't using enough to cool it. Many of us start off with at least 2 2litres to get it started
 
Alright, two 1 liter bottles and two 16oz bottles seem to have brought it down to 66F which is closer to where I wanted it to go. I would like it lower (at least in the initial fermentation stages) but, again, have space issues in my freezer and barely have enough room to swap out what I have every 12 hours or so. I'm also wondering if it got cooler overnight and "peaked" and was on it's way back up when I checked on it this morning.

Either way, it looks like the bag does work as advertised. Any tips for bottle placement? I'll see if I can make room for some two liters in my fridge. Thanks guys.
 
Since I have 2 of these great bags and don't brew as much in the summer as I used to, yesterday I decided to put one bag inside another bag and put my fermenter in them both. It fit fine and I pitched my yeast at 68 then immediately added 2 quart frozen bottles so that the temp spike would be minimal.
Fermentation started fast, 4 hours after pitching and this morning, it was going gangbusters and the temperature was still holding at 68. I'm sure if I were to add more frozen jugs, I could get this down to 60 easy in my 78 degree house.
This is overkill but is uber efficient and while I'm not using the second one for another brew, I might as well take advantage of it and try it out.
 
Last week was the first time I used my bag for a 5 gal batch. I cooled the wort to 68F, pitched the yeast, put it in the bag with maybe 1 or 2 frozen half gal milk jugs. Temp got down to 64F. Then fermentation started and I had to add more ice packs, but the temp never got above 67F. After that it dropped back down to 65F and I let it slowly rise by only putting in 1 frozen 20 oz bottle.

It does require a little fiddling during active fermentation, but it maintains the temp well after. This is in a 70-72F basement, so I don't need much, but really just need to lower it during the active part of fermentation.
 
I wish I would have found this thread earlier. I have a Kolsch in my basement, ambient is around 64-66ºF. When active ferm started the temps rose to 72ºF. Not good for a Kolsch. Right now its in a makeshift swamp cooler. Today after reading glowing reviews in this thread I ordered one for myself. I will likely order a second one if it works as well as I anticipate.
 
I ordered yesterday. The rest of my starter package is here Thursday, so I'm really hoping this bag arrives for the weekend so I can start my first batch.

Seemed to make the most sense for me at this time. I'm excited to check it out.

Edit to Add: I ordered mine from Morebeer.com with their free shipping. While the time is outlined as an additional 1-2 days to ship, apparently they are unwilling to push it to the 1 day instead of 2 when asked, so I guess I won't be brewing my first batch this weekend. Bummer. I'll be steering clear of morebeer for all of my future needs. But still looking forward to my Cool Brewing bag!
 
Just a quick follow up after having my CBFC for about 5 days now.... This thing is COOL (pun intended!) I brewed up an ESB and got it cooled down to about 70°, pitched the yeast and stuck it in my CBFC with a frozen gallon jug. Within 4 hours my fermenter was down to about 60°. Oops, a little too low. Now I just have a single frozen 16.9 oz (500ml) water bottle in there and temps are holding solid at 64-65° during active fermentation in ambient temp of around 66-67°. I only have to change the frozen bottle out once per day. I will definitely be getting another one of these in spring when temps start rising.
 
I'm really digging mine too. Air temp is 76 and I have no issue keeping the stick on thermometer on the fermenter in the mid 60's with a couple ice bottles.

On another note, MoreBeer ended up coming thru and was able to get out the bag out, so I've had a brew in it since Sunday. A little customer service goes a long way.

Anyway, back to the bag. As a noob, definitely recommended.
 
Just wanted to give some positive praise to the folks who make this bag. It worked great for me.

I simply put frozen 2L water bottles into the bag about once every 36 hours and my beers stay very well controlled.

I can also regularly fit my 6.5gal glass and 6 gal better bottle in the bag together.


Thanks Coolbrew
 
heckofagator said:
I ordered yesterday. The rest of my starter package is here Thursday, so I'm really hoping this bag arrives for the weekend so I can start my first batch.

Seemed to make the most sense for me at this time. I'm excited to check it out.

Edit to Add: I ordered mine from Morebeer.com with their free shipping. While the time is outlined as an additional 1-2 days to ship, apparently they are unwilling to push it to the 1 day instead of 2 when asked, so I guess I won't be brewing my first batch this weekend. Bummer. I'll be steering clear of morebeer for all of my future needs. But still looking forward to my Cool Brewing bag!
Click to expand...

Glad to hear morebeer came through for you, but I can't believe you were going to "steer clear" of them because they weren't going to expedite your FREE shipping when you yourself even acknowledged their statement of an extra one or two days. You would of been shooting yourself in the foot if you had though since morebeer is the better big home brew supply company.

Congrats on the first brew though :mug: and you've made an excellent choice on focusing on temperature control right out the gate!
 
Has anyone else had issues with the zippers on the bag? After multiple attempts to seal the loop closed with pliers, my zipper loops kept coming off. I figured it was a small issue since the zipper itself was still in tact so I just dealt with it but now the part that keeps the zipper closed has come off the track! For such a sturdy bag I feel like the zipper should be a bit more of an industrial strength. I have one zipper left (there's 2 on it initially) to go all the way around the bag with no loop so I'll just cross my fingers with this one not to break
 
schmeek said:
Has anyone else had issues with the zippers on the bag? After multiple attempts to seal the loop closed with pliers, my zipper loops kept coming off. I figured it was a small issue since the zipper itself was still in tact so I just dealt with it but now the part that keeps the zipper closed has come off the track! For such a sturdy bag I feel like the zipper should be a bit more of an industrial strength. I have one zipper left (there's 2 on it initially) to go all the way around the bag with no loop so I'll just cross my fingers with this one not to break
Click to expand...

Yes, I had one bag that had continual problems with that, the zipper tab kept coming off. I contacted the company and they sent me a new bag. The new one seems to have a better, smoother zipper and the tab has stayed on.
 
I've won many medals solely using these bags.

The key is to pay attention to ambient temp swings, and take notes of what size bottle, and how many, will achieve what temp.

With a little detail it's easy to maintain a specific temp with little swing.

Oh, and I am not in anyway endorsed by this company, just a huge fan :)
 
After using the bag about a half dozen times, I decided to move up to a chest freezer/temp controller for fermentation temp control. The bag worked great, but I wanted something more automatic with less work from me. So I'm selling mine if anyone is interested. It's basically like new. PM me if interested.
 
schmeek said:
Has anyone else had issues with the zippers on the bag? After multiple attempts to seal the loop closed with pliers, my zipper loops kept coming off. I figured it was a small issue since the zipper itself was still in tact so I just dealt with it but now the part that keeps the zipper closed has come off the track! For such a sturdy bag I feel like the zipper should be a bit more of an industrial strength. I have one zipper left (there's 2 on it initially) to go all the way around the bag with no loop so I'll just cross my fingers with this one not to break
Click to expand...

Same thing. I just soldered the loop closed on mine with a big glob of rosin core solder I had laying around. Bet some hot glue would do the same thing if you don't have a soldering iron.
 
Hello,

We are sorry to hear about your zipper issue and appreciate your feedback.

It is because of feedback like this that we have improved our coolers in the following ways.

1.) We have moved to a heavier duty zipper specifically designed to accommodate new thicker insulation.
2.) Thicker Insulation. This not only helps maintain cooler temperatures better, but also makes the cooler more rigid to stand up better on its own.
3.) A thicker internal liner. This helps keep the cooler even more durable as well as helping with temperature control.

Our newly improved coolers just arrived in stock last month and we are only shipping them now.

Cheers,
 
Hi,

Will you be having a Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal for your cooler?


CoolBrewing said:
Hello,

We are sorry to hear about your zipper issue and appreciate your feedback.

It is because of feedback like this that we have improved our coolers in the following ways.

1.) We have moved to a heavier duty zipper specifically designed to accommodate new thicker insulation.
2.) Thicker Insulation. This not only helps maintain cooler temperatures better, but also makes the cooler more rigid to stand up better on its own.
3.) A thicker internal liner. This helps keep the cooler even more durable as well as helping with temperature control.

Our newly improved coolers just arrived in stock last month and we are only shipping them now.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
Just received my bag from morebeer's flash sale last Friday. How can I tell if I received the new and improved model? Hopefully I didn't receive old stock.
 
My ferm chamber project keeps getting pushed back, so I bit on this. Want to brew a maibock soon...
 
Just got mine today - I like it! Sure beats trying to get gallons of water into a plastic tub in my basement. I'll be putting it to work immediately, as a strong ale is scheduled Friday.
 
ecobb said:
+1
Click to expand...

Hi,
We have been in contact with more beer and they are going to verify their inventory however we think they have only been shipping the new models for a little while now.
An easy way to tell is if the cooler box it shipped in opens from the large part of the box or the small sides of the box. The new and improved models open from the small sides.
Regardless of the model we stand behind our product and will take care quality concerns directly.
Please feel free to contact us on here or at [email protected] if we can be of help with anything else!
 
CoolBrewing said:
Hi,
We have been in contact with more beer and they are going to verify their inventory however we think they have only been shipping the new models for a little while now.
An easy way to tell is if the cooler box it shipped in opens from the large part of the box or the small sides of the box. The new and improved models open from the small sides.
Regardless of the model we stand behind our product and will take care quality concerns directly.
Please feel free to contact us on here or at [email protected] if we can be of help with anything else!
Click to expand...


Hi,

As a follow up Morebeer has confirmed they are shipping new inventory now!

Thanks again and please feel free to contact us on here or at [email protected] if we can be of help with anything else!
 
octo said:
is this thing rigid? or just like a soft cooler would be?
Have you thought about maybe putting a coil in it like a collapsible laundry basket might have so when its needed it can pop up and maintain shape, and when its not needed it can be pushed flat and stored away?

as an example:
0003886102849_300X300.jpg


also would it be able to accommodate a blow off tube?
Click to expand...

Lol I just saw this, and wondered why not buy some insulation and use the laundry bag.

I did just buy one though
 
I just bought one, so I sure hope it does work well. From all the positive responses that I've read, it should enable me to continue brewing in this hot summer weather.
Tony
 
TonyKZ1 said:
I just bought one, so I sure hope it does work well. From all the positive responses that I've read, it should enable me to continue brewing in this hot summer weather.
Tony
Click to expand...

I live in the tropics and its a life saver. The key is to have 2-3 BIG frozen bottles ready at the start of fermentation to cool down the wort/beer right off the bat.
 
KPBrews said:
I just picked one up, too. Have you tried yours yet? I'm gonna break mine in this weekend!
Click to expand...

You won't be disappointed. And to prove a point, I entered my 2nd competition since using this brewing bag last year, and I scored a 41 on one beer and 30's on the others and none of the score sheets talked about any off flavors. That right there proves that this bag keeps your fermentation temps down.
 
Fermenting away happily in my Cool Brewing bag. :) I love that I don't have to worry (as much) about blow off mess, and a daily bottle swap is no big deal. Room for two in a tiny closet, and doesn't even look bad if someone pokes their head in!

xzHLX9.png

DDGYfi.jpg


I even overshot my temp target! Those temp reduction estimates are pretty darned accurate, given an ambient temp of approx 76 degrees, I hit 54 degrees with one 1 gal bottle plus two 2l bottles (it's a little hard to see in the photo, but that strip does read 54):

wPVPij.jpg
 

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