My idea for a cheap cool bag

I just saw the cool bag advertised for 60 dollars...
So I was thinking why not buy a survival blanket wrap the bucket/carboy up in that and add water bottles as needed? It's water proof, light and cheap...anybody see a hole in my idea? Or have a better idea? Tired of my swap cooler and can't do the mini refrigerator yet...

I'm in the same boat. If you test this, let me know your outcome. $60 is a bit steep for a insulated bag.

MedicMang said:

I'm in the same boat. If you test this, let me know your outcome. $60 is a bit steep for a insulated bag.

Click to expand...

So far the survival blanket inside a cardboard box is keeping steady temp at 54 degrees, I put about 6 12oz frozen bottles, 3 half gallon jugs frozen in there, my setup should hold 3 carboys, I currently have a test bucket with water in there that started at 74 degrees checked about 3 hours later and it's at 66 degrees, so far it works and only cost me about 12 dollars since I had other material, I think this one will be good for maintaining a cool temp for post fermentation, going to lowes to bud the box out of an insulated material and will line with blanket again,hope this helps...

ive caught the flaw in this. when a carboy sits in the open the loss of energy to the air around it is pretty dramatic. if you isolate the carboy from the outside air you create an enclosed system and therefor must remove as much energy as the fermenting liquid creates by using frozen water to absorb that thermal energy. the only way this would be more efficent is if the system you are isolating the carboy from(the surrounding air) adds more heat than the fermentation process itself adds. example would be if the surrounding air was 80 degrees or more as ive heard of fermentation adding 10 degrees max to the carboy. in this case it would be more work to remove THAT added energy than to just blanket it.

TylerGuy said:

ive caught the flaw in this. when a carboy sits in the open the loss of energy to the air around it is pretty dramatic. if you isolate the carboy from the outside air you create an enclosed system and therefor must remove as much energy as the fermenting liquid creates by using frozen water to absorb that thermal energy. the only way this would be more efficent is if the system you are isolating the carboy from(the surrounding air) adds more heat than the fermentation process itself adds. example would be if the surrounding air was 80 degrees or more as ive heard of fermentation adding 10 degrees max to the carboy. in this case it would be more work to remove THAT added energy than to just blanket it.

Click to expand...

I see what your saying but it's the same principle as the 60 dollar cool brew bag but mine cost way cheaper

actually i was just reading another post and it uses this idea but to a MUCH better efficency rate. a guy put the carboy into a larger container and filled with water. he added bottles of frozen water. the part that makes this better is a much higher transfer rate of energy due to a greater surface contact between the carboy and cooling liquid. really any way that cools the liquid and is easy is great. the tee shirt on the carboy with the end in a bowl of water is great because it uses phase change to take the heat away. when the water evaporates it takes alot of thermal energy to make this change and it takes it from the beer.(acutally the frozen bottles preform a phase change to from solid to liquid but this phase change requires much less energy than liquid to gas in the case of the evaporating shirt)