BrewJacket - A Preliminary Review

I bought a BrewJacket a while ago, but I didn't have occasion to use it until last week. I planned to use it for a few batches before posting here, but since I see that its manufacturer has launched a new Kickstarter campaign, I figured it is better to post my initial thoughts now, while people might be considering "backing" the project. Just so you know, I have no financial interest in the company—my only connection is that I am a customer (I backed the first Kickstarter campaign).

As for the new Kickstarter campaign... personally I don't see the point of being able to warm my beer while it is fermenting. But that's because I'm brewing in an apartment where the ambient temperature is generally between 75 and 80°F, and I almost never brew saisons. You may find it useful. But I would not recommend using the warming feature to do a lactobacillus fermentation. The rod is aluminum, and I don't think it should be used when the pH will be low. That said, I don't know where the safe cutoff is for anodized aluminum, so I might be too conservative on this point.

Anyway, this review pertains to the original BrewJacket, which doesn't have any heating capability.

Pros

It seems to work. It has kept my beer within a 4-5°F range throughout the fermentation.

It is fairly compact. If you might move, or if you ever want to brew/ferment at a friend's house or whatever, it is vastly easier to transport than a chest freezer. And when it is not in use, it can be tucked away. This is a nice feature if you have limited space. That said, the "jacket" part of the product is somewhat bulky. Much smaller than a chest freezer, but it does take up some space.

The interface is easy to use—I just press up or down buttons to adjust the temperature. The screen tells me the current temperature and the target temperature.

Cons

The BrewJacket works... but very slowly. It had no trouble holding my beer within a specified temperature range (but see below), but I don't think it's a good idea to use it to cool your beer down from a higher temperature, at least not if you are in a hurry. It might be suitable for cold-crashing if you don't mind doing it over the course of several days.

The marketing for the Kickstarter campaign claims that it cools beer "to 35° F + / - ambient, holds to 0.5°F." I don't know about the first part (I am keeping my beer about 15°F below ambient), but certainly it doesn't keep the beer within a half-degree range. The beer tends to go 2-3 degrees over the target, and then the machine kicks in. Slooooowly it cools down to the target temperature, or a degree or two below, and then the machine turns off and it slowly warms up again. Note: I don't think this is necessarily worse than other temperature control systems, and I think my beer will be fine. But I also don't think they should be claiming to hold the temperature within 0.5°F of the target.

The fan in the BrewJacket is noisier than you would expect. Not everyone would be able to sleep in the same room, and even if it is in the next room it could get to be pretty annoying.

The temperature probe gave wacky readings at first. I unplugged it and re-plugged it a few times, and then it started working fine.

You shouldn't sanitize the aluminum rod with StarSan. I used IO Star, which was fine, but it is somewhat annoying to have to buy two types of sanitizer (I generally prefer StarSan). You can also apparently bake the rod in the oven at 250°F to sanitize, but I haven't done this.

By the same token, I would feel uncomfortable using the BrewJacket with a sour beer. I just don't trust the aluminum in a low-pH environment.

You have to drill a hole in your plastic carboy or bucket lid to use the BrewJacket (you can also buy pre-drilled fermenters and lids). If you have access to a drill, this is not a big deal, although it is kind of annoying because now your BetterBottle (or whatever) has a hole in it. If you want to use the fermenter without the BrewJacket, you have to deal with the hole.

The BrewJacket cools one bucket or carboy at a time. A chest freezer can often handle 2 or 3. This isn't actually a con for me, since I never have more than one batch going at once, but for some people it would be a big deal. On the other hand, if you don't mind the cost, you could have two BrewJackets going in an area smaller than a chest freezer, and each could be set to a different temperature.

Overall

The list of cons is much longer than the list of pros, but you shouldn't weight them equally. Having a "set it and forget it" form of temperature control that is easy to transport and store is a big deal. At the end of the day, I think this product is probably superior for people who might move, or who live in a small space. A BrewJacket is already pretty close to competitive with a chest freezer/digital control on price, and it is vastly easier to move and store. If you are going to live in 5 different apartments in the next 10 years, but you want a good system to control fermentation temperature, then I think this is the product for you. (Just make sure you can stand the noise.)

One thing I'll note is that the unit uses a temperature probe that is separate from the aluminum rod. Unless you are using a thermowell, you should tape this probe to the side of your fermenter with insulation between it and the air (just as you would for any other temperature control mechanism). It is not sufficient to dangle the probe between the jacket and the fermenter. I taped it to the side of my fermenter with a few layers of bubble wrap on the outside, and it has worked fine.

 

Thanks everyone, I'm glad to help.

I want to report a development: I have been contacted by the manufacturer, which stated that the temperature swings I have observed are not to be expected and may result from faulty temperature control circuitry that was inadvertently used in the first production run. (The same goes for my experience with temperature readings, which were bizarre at first but then settled down after I unplugged and re-plugged the temperature probe a few times.) I plan to follow up to see if the issue can be resolved, and I will report back (though unfortunately, probably not before the current Kickstarter campaign ends). If the manufacturer's claim is correct, then you can expect the BrewJacket to maintain a much tighter temperature range for your beer than my experience would indicate.

I should also say (and should have said in my initial review) that customer service has been excellent in my experience. And it's not just a case of getting attention by publicly airing my issues—in the past I have contacted the company directly by email, and I have received very prompt and helpful responses.

 

Just an update on this, which I would have provided far earlier except that for various reasons I didn't brew for nearly a year after I wrote this review. I sent my original control board back to the manufacturer, which replaced it with a new one. (Apparently the original run of control boards, which mostly/entirely went to Kickstarter backers such as myself, included a few faulty units.)

Using the new control board, I can report that the temperature stays within one degree of the desired temperature at all times. So the issue I reported in my original review, in which the temperature would rise several degrees above the target temperature, is not an issue you should expect to encounter if you are buying a new unit. If you acquire a used unit, you might check to see when it was made.

Otherwise my original review remains accurate. For the cons I would emphasize the noise, and for the pros I would emphasize the ease of use and the transportability. Moving a chest freezer is a real undertaking; moving a BrewJacket is like moving a winter jacket plus a blender. Just one move to a new house or apartment could make the BrewJacket well worth it. Also, if you live in an apartment, the small size of the BrewJacket is a plus. (Unfortunately the noise is also somewhat exacerbated by a small apartment size.)

Another thing that I didn't focus on in my initial review is that while a chest freezer (including a temperature control unit) and a BrewJacket are competitive on cost, you can fit multiple fermenters into a typical chest freezer, while a BrewJacket can only handle one fermenter at a time. For me, this doesn't matter, because I don't brew often enough to have multiple batches going at once. Bear in mind that if you do have multiple fermenters in a chest freezer, they must all be at the same temperature (or at least, the same external temperature), so it's not ideal. But for some brewers that's okay, in which case it's something to consider when choosing between a BrewJacket and a chest freezer.

Finally, my experience with customer service at BrewJacket has been excellent. If you do have any problems, I expect you will be able to get them resolved promptly and completely, as I did.

 

The answer to the first question is no. The unit still takes agonizingly long to push temperatures down, at least in a 5-gallon batch. You really need to get the wort to pitching temp using other methods and then use the BrewJacket to hold it there.

Another con I've identified is that it doesn't seem to be able to keep temperatures as far below ambient as the manufacturer claims. I brewed a lager last month and tried to ferment at 50°F. On a warm day (by April standards) I noticed it warming up to the mid-50s even though I hadn't changed its setting. I decided what the hell, I guess this is my diacetyl rest, but if it had happened earlier in the fermentation I would have been upset. I'm guessing the ambient temperature was 80°F or so, but I don't really remember. (Looking at the records it appears the warmest temperature in April was 80°F, and my apartment might have been a few degrees warmer than that. But I don't remember which day it happened, so I'm not sure exactly what the temperature was. It definitely wasn't 90°F, that I can say for sure.) It should be noted that I never replaced the jacket, and they've changed the design since I bought it, so maybe the new jackets provide better insulation.

Also, I've had trouble getting an air-tight seal sometimes when using the BrewJacket. This has been more of a problem with my Fermonster fermenters (which are kind of like Big Mouth Bubblers) than with buckets, which tend to work fine. The issue has to do with the need to put both the rod and the blowoff tube through the same lid. On a bucket the lid is big enough that they don't get in each other's way, but on a smaller lid the blowoff tube is sandwiched between the cooling unit and the lid, and it is hard to get it to form a seal. If I really cared I could drill a hole in the neck of my fermenter and use that for a blowoff, I suppose. In practice I just use my bucket, reserving the Fermonster for kveik-fermented beers and things like that.

Finally, bear in mind that the presence of the BrewJacket makes it a bit harder to get into your fermenter to take gravity readings and things like that. It's not terribly hard, but it's more of a production than it would be in, say, a chest freezer. In practice I often don't do gravity readings during fermentation (gasp) and so it's not a big deal for me, but actually that's something I'm thinking about changing, and I may get a chest freezer so I can (A) brew lagers and (B) monitor the beer more easily during fermentation.

Other than that my earlier reviews remain accurate. I wouldn't hesitate to use my BrewJacket for ale fermentations, and have every intention of doing so, but I don't think I'll trust it with a lager again. But note: I don't control the temperature in my apartment apart from opening a window in the winter or running a window AC in the summer, so I'm not in a position to keep ambient temperature reliably low, at least not without wasting a lot of energy. If you can keep ambient temperatures in the low to mid 70s, you may have no trouble brewing lagers. And bear in mind what I said about the new and improved jackets, which I don't have.

They've also come out with plastic rod sleeves so that you can use the BrewJacket for a sour fermentation, but I haven't actually used them. (I tend not to use temperature control for my sours, or if anything I might use the jacket without the rod to keep the beer warm.) Depending on how things shake out I may get the sleeves just so I can sanitize with StarSan instead of Iodophor, since StarSan is my preferred sanitizer.

I continue to think that the product is best for someone who might move in the short- to medium-term, since it is so much easier to move than a chest freezer would be. However, you also want somewhere you can keep it where the noise won't bother you (and I don't think a closet will work because it will heat up the closet too much).

If my BrewJacket died, would I replace it? It's a tough question. I think the answer is no, but it would be a close call. Partly I would say "no" because I am likely to buy a chest freezer anyway for lagers. Bear in mind, even if it died I would still have the jacket, which I like to use with kveik fermentations to keep the temperature elevated. If the whole thing got stolen, jacket and all... I guess I would probably replace it. Still a close call at that point, but it's perfectly good for ales and the jacket is handy for high-temperature fermentations.

Sorry for the long-winded answer.

 

Wow, I assumed the website would give specifications for the product, but I certainly can't find any after a few minutes of searching. The rod definitely hits the bottom of my 8-gallon bucket, leaving a small length (maybe 1", definitely less than 3") of exposed rod between the electronic chilling unit and the lid. That's not ideal I suppose but I manage to insulate it decently well and apart from that I don't see why it would pose a big problem.

Agreed that lack of access to the spigot is a problem in your setup, especially with the new jackets that don't have a velcro-lined opening along the side. I am not sure an air gap is a problem but I suppose it could be. There is no significant air gap for me because I don't have anything protruding from my fermenters.

In your situation I would consider going with the standing freezer that VikeMan has posted about. That way you definitely have access to your spigot. Another thing that I would consider if I were you is racking to a keg and then cold-crashing under pressure, so that you don't get any suck-back of air, which might introduce oxygen to your beer. You could also cold-crash in your kegerator, solving that particular aspect of the temperature control puzzle for you. (I seem to remember that you posted that you are getting and/or resuming use of a kegerator, but if I've misremembered that, sorry.)

 

I'll have a better answer for you when I've had a chance to measure, but yes, the rod protrudes a few inches from the top of the fermenter and the cooling unit screws onto it. If the rod protrudes far enough, as is the case with my plastic bucket, there is a length of rod exposed to the air in between the cooling unit and the gasket where it enters the lid of the fermenter. You would obviously want to insulate that as any heat introduced at that point is directly reducing the efficacy of the system (either preventing it from reaching the desired temperature or simply wasting energy).

But in any case there will be an inch or two protruding above the fermenter's lid, as this is necessary to attach the rod to the cooling unit.