Back on track - I saw this product up close and personal at a competition and it is both a great idea and well made!
I've been brewing with these for several months now and I love them.
Haven't yet figured how to keep the lid weight off the airlock when using a glass carboy. In a bucket I just stick something taller than the airlock on top to prop up the lid.
I can usually easily achieve 7-8 degrees below ambient temp. With a little care and effort I can achieve 10-11 degrees below.
I've learned to predict temp swings and add/remove frozen water bottles as need. My last beer I managed to keep a constant temperature of 67 degrees F for a solid 14 days. One time it went down to 66, and up to 68, but for no longer than an hour or two.
No, lagering is after FG is reached, after fermentation. Lagers ferment at a temperature too high to serve beer at, so cannot use a kegerator to serve and ferment, but you can use them to serve and lager.
To expand on the answer above, for lagers you ferment at or around 50F and then lager at a lower temp, no more than 40F, for around a month. This process is part of what gives the beer the characteristic lager smoothness.
Thanks for the clarification guys. I guess I didn't quite understand how that worked.
It's nice to read all the great reviews about this product. I am definitely thinking about getting one myself.
Any word on the smaller bags for 3 gallon carboy?
Any word on the smaller bags for 3 gallon carboy?
mors said:I would start cooling before you even pitch the yeast. Most of the off flavors produced by yeast at the higher temps are at the start of fermentation (the growth phase). So you really want it at or slightly below your desired fermentation temp before pitching and then hold the fermentation temp you desire. I typically pitch about 5F below my desired fermentation temp.
I cool the wort to pitching temp before transferring to fermenter and before putting the fermenter in the bag. The cool brewing bag does best at keeping the wort cool. It is not as good at cooling the wort from a higher temp. It can be used to cool the wort but it is much slower than a wort chiller or ice bath.
mors said:Ah yeah.... I didn't intend to imply to use the bag to cool the wort to pitching temp... I just meant use the bag from the start of fermentation on. Don't wait until it's already fermenting to try and lower the temp as it will be too late at that point.
MaltMonster said:I took advantage of their Father's Day discount and ordered one yesterday. It has already shipped. I hope it is as good as everyone is reporting.
Now I have to figure out to keep track of the temperature.
Hey malt, to track temps in my bag I got a digital thermometer at Wal-Mart. It has a wire lead on it with a sticky probe. I just stick it on the fermenter add frozen bottles and that's it. Pretty easy.
Norsebrewer said:Hi guys. I learned about this cooling bag from this thread, bought it, and had it shipped to Norway in order to test an idea I had about controlling the temp inside the bag.
What I did was I bought a small cooling bag that would fit two 1.5 liter water bottles, cut a hole on each side of the bag and mounted pc fans in them. I then placed the little bag inside the bigger bag together with the fermentation bucket, and used a digital temp controller (UT-200, german) to operate the fans. The air inside the cool-brewing bag would then be circulated through the ice chamber bag and cooled down. My initial results are that this works very well. Not only is the temperature controlled more accurately, the ice seems to last longer as well. I suppose this has to do with the fact that when the fans are not running, the ice is kept cooler and no cool air is wasted. The bag heats up rather quickly though, 1-2c every minute (ambient 23c) from what I can tell. That is a bit disappointing. I am considering insulating it further with aluminium foil.
I am surprised by the fast temp rise you had. My temp controller only turned on the fan every couple of hours with a 1F differential setting.
Norsebrewer said:I just ran a test, where I let the fans cool the bag down to 9.5C. When I shut the fans off, the temperature increased to 15C in exactly 4 minutes and 30 seconds. This is of course with no ice cooling the bag, but nevertheless not very impressive. I will have to think of some way of insulating it better.. aluminium foil is perhaps not such a good idea, seing as the bag is being folded when not in use.
Are you measuring the air temp or fermenting beer temp? I taped the tip of the thermocouple onto my fermenter with a small towel over the thermocouple to insulate it from the air. Air temp is not as important as the beer temp.
I agree the air will fluctuate much after than 5 gallons of beer.
It seems surprising but I think you will have more luck when you add the beer.Norsebrewer said:Still, I was not expecting air temperature to rise that quickly..
It seems surprising but I think you will have more luck when you add the beer.
Norsebrewer said:I think you are right, now that I think about it.. a large mass of beer inside that bag will surely help keep the air temperature a bit more stable.
Are these usable with Speidel Plastic Fermenter - 20L ? I'm mostly worried about the airlock. Since it moves up and down I'm worried the material could keep it from moving up.
Dylan42 said:Quick question I'm a rack to a secondary kind of guy after 7-10 days. This might be a dumb question but is it still necessary to keep it strictly cool in a secondary?
I've used my 30L Speidel fermenter in a CoolBrewing bag 4 times....have one in right now.Hi, that is a good question.
We have not done any specific testing with Speidel airlocks yet.
A customer stopped by our booth at the National Homebrewers Conference a few weeks ago and told us he is using a Speidel fermenter in our fermentation cooler without any issues. He stated he placed a tall plastic pitcher over the airlock to be sure it has room to move.
We do have a 45 day no questions asked return policy if you would like to try it out.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
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