Cool Brewing Insulated Fermentation Bag

So on my first batch I used a large tub full of water and added ice to control temp. It was kind of a pain in the @ss! I'm thinking about purchasing a Cool Brewing Insulated Fermentation Bag and using frozen 2 litter bottles of water to control temp. Seems like a more simple solution. Does anybody have any experience with this product?

https://www.morebeer.com/products/cool-brewing-insulated-fermentation-bag.html

 

These are great. We sell them in our store. We used one all the time ourselves. We have even fermented lagers at 50 degrees using frozen 1 gallon milk jugs. For anyone that doesn't have a dedicated temperature controlled chamber, I recommend these.

 

Thanks for the info! I don't have the space for a dedicated fridge/freezer/icebox so I figured this is a nice compromise. Cheers.

 

I've been intrigued by these and similar items...

When you fermented at 50 degrees, what was the ambient temp, how many jugs did you use, and how often did you swap them out?

 

I use one of these and with a couple frozen 2 litre soda bottles I can ferment at about 10 degrees lower than room temperature fairly easily. I can also vouch for their ease in cleanup. I had a "boil-over" with some enthusiastic yeast and it was no problem to clean with a hose and some Clorox wipes.

 

Ambient in the store is 66 degrees. We found we could probably change it out once a day but there was some swing in the temperature so we just did it twice a day and that seemed to work great.

 

I've also read that by increasing the amount of frozen bottles you can possibly lower temp even more. I'm think
I'm gonna pull the trigger on this purchase.

 

How many gallon jugs in it at a time?

 

I use this exclusively for fermentation when my kegerator still has beer in it...love it! I use 2L frozen seltzer bottles and it keeps my fermenting wort in the low 60's...if I want it higher I go with one frozen bottle works like a charm!

 

Just one.

 

Nice

So...if ambient temp was between 75 and 80, do you think three jugs would lower the inside temp to 50?

(Assuming there's room for a five gallon carboy and three jugs)

 

Been using for two years now and wouldn't change a thing. All my beers come out great thanks to it! I chill down to 68-70 and then put a frozen gallon jug in to keep my fermentation at low 60's for the first few days of fermentation. After the first few days of active fermentation, I don't swap anymore. I just let it heat up.

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I just purchased one and will give an update once I've put it to use.

 

You can ask them on their website. They are really responsive. I do think you would be able to get it down that far. You might have to change them out a couple times a day.

 

I have one of these and it works well for temp control when fermenting.

If it is empty when I am brewing, I often put it over my mash tun (which because I BIAB is a 10 gal brew kettle) to help maintain the temp. This is super helpful in the colder months.

 

I've also bought one of these and have been using it since last summer. I use a frozen 3 Liter bottle, change it out every morning, and even during these hot summer months it keeps a 5G or two 2G or several 1G fermenters around ~65*F or so. I monitor the temp with a cheap aquarium type thermometer with a remote sensor stuck to the side of the fermenter.

 

Update: The Cool Brewing Insulated Fermentation Bag has arrived. I haven't put it to use yet but here are my initial thoughts.

- It's bigger than I expected but that's a good thing.

- It's a bit flimsy, the side walls aren't rigid so it's collapsing quite a bit on the sides. Probably won't be an issue once I put a fermenter inside.

- And it's pretty well insulated. I had the box inside for hours before I opened and unpacked and I have to say, it was a sauna inside this thing. It retained the heat from storage, shipping and sitting in my wife's boiling hot car very well.

I will provide another update next week once I put a fermenter full of Apricot Blonde Ale in it.

 

I might have to make one of these things.

 

As far as the fit goes, would it accommodate a 5 gallon carboy if it had a 1" blowoff tube running to a jar/milkjug/etc? Maybe close up the bag, leaving an opening just big enough for the tube?

 

I have 2 of these and they work well for my purposes. Haven't tried lagering in one, but I don't see why it'd be a problem with enough frozen bottles.

I think you could fit both inside the cooler without a problem. There is a bit of extra space inside, even with a fermenting bucket or carboy.

 

You would have no issues at all fitting a 5 gallon carboy and blowoff tube/bucket inside. It is very spacious! But you need to keep enough space in there for your frozen 2 litter bottles and if you will need a lot of them then putting the blowoff bucket outside would probably work great. I read a review from a guy who fit two 5 gallon carboys inside, albeit very snugly.

 

Update: I've been using the insulated fermentation bag on my latest batch of Apricot Blonde Ale and am completely blown away by this thing.

It's holding a steady 65 degrees with little to no fluctuation. I'm using two 2 liter bottles in the bag, replacing one in the morning and one at night. If you increased the amount of bottles in this thing I have no doubt you could lager with it. And with my 6 gallon Better Bottle in there I could still fit about eight 2 liters. Incredible!

 

out of curiosity, what was the ambient temp?

 

I just finished a blonde ale in mine using 2 2 liter bottles at 66* and the ambient in my house was 79*. Kept in the hall closet that is right next to the thermostat.

 

During the days ambient temps reached upwards of 85 degrees. But as long as the 2 liters hadn't completely melted it seemed to have no effect.

 

Whoa you are dropping and consistently holding a 20 degree temp drop from ambient?

 

I have dropped/held 15 or so from room temp. I haven't done it yet but you can lager in this bag.

 

When I'm home ambient temps are around 76 degrees, but when I leave for work (and turn off AC..its still pretty hot in CA) I come home to 80-85 degree temps.

So it's not 24 hour 85 degree temps, but the changes in ambient temp while I'm at work on weekdays doesn't seem to affect the temp inside the cooler as long as I make sure the 2 liters haven't melted completely. Once they are completely melted you do see temp increases.

That being said, with four 2 liter bottles I'm sure you could drop and maintain 20 degrees or more from ambient temp.

 

im also interested in this set up my thing is ive seen some lager recipes that say to ferment at 50 degrees is this possible with this set up my basement stays relatively cool around 68 to 66

 

With an ambient temp of 66-68 you could use 2-3 two liter frozen bottles to hold at 50. Each bottle tends to drop the temp about 5-7 degrees in my experience.

 

thank you sir

 

Since this seems to be one of the more recent threads about this product, I wanted to note that I had a bit of an epiphany recently in terms of optimizing its effectiveness. This may be very obvious to others, and may have been discussed elsewhere, but it had never occurred to me until my most recent brew.

I was struggling some with precision in fermentation temperatures--the bag does a pretty good job of keeping the temp constant during or after fermentation, but I was having trouble getting the exact temperatures that I wanted (as measured through a thermowell). I felt like I was doing a lot of mixing and matching of frozen bottle sizes to get it exactly where i wanted it, and I had a couple of underattenuated batches because the beer temp would drop rapidly once active fermentation was over, leading to premature flocculation.

I happen to have a temp controller and brew belt that I've used for making saisons, and I realized I could hook both of those up to my fermenter, and pack the cooler full of frozen water bottles to achieve a temperature lower than my target ferm temp., and set the controller and heater for my desired temperature. I've been keeping my current brew at an exact 65 during fermentation using this method.

This obviously wouldn't really work if you're fermenting in a 90 degree room, but the bag should give you enough cooling power for it to work at most normal household temperatures.

 

CoolBrewing here!

Wow! We really just wanted to say thanks to everyone for spending the time to comment on our products. We are a small, family owned business and your comments, suggestions and reviews are really helpful to keeping us going. It makes our day when we see that our products are working well for you and keeping our brewer friends happy! Even when we see people commenting on the the improvements we could make, that is helpful as well. Please feel free to reach out to us at anytime with questions or concerns.

Cheers!

Dave