Controlling the temperature

How much is the actual temperature of the beer (not the ambient air) varying?

Cheers!

 

When I ran out of space in my ferment chamber I made a swamp cooler. Combined that with a temp controller connected to a fan and the hot side to a heat wrap.

 

If you are looking to spend the money on a brewjacket, I would say instead get a small dorm sized fridge and an inkbird temp controller. When not fermenting it can double as a kegerator.

 

Some time ago I wrote a preliminary review, and then I followed up later with an update. The update is important because with the manufacturer's help I was able to resolve an issue that I experienced at first.

By the way, my college refrigerator would not have been nearly big enough for a bucket or carboy (I think not even a 3-gallon carboy - they are tall!). My (admittedly uneducated) sense is that a refrigerator big enough to ferment beer in is going to be fairly big and heavy.

I believe the BrewJacket is a great way to control the temperature of your beer with a high degree of precision. I would highlight the following pros and cons:

Pros

1. The BrewJacket is very easy to store and transport. Especially if you might move to a new house or apartment, but also if you might have occasion to brew away from home, its light weight will be a real advantage.

2. The BrewJacket can either cool or heat your beer. (Mine can't, actually, because I bought an early version, but I believe the new ones can.) This could be very useful if you want to brew a saison or to ferment with kveik, the Norwegian yeast that thrives in the high 90s Fahrenheit.

3. The BrewJacket is easy to use. The only slightly hard part is sanitizing the anodized aluminum rod that goes into the beer, since it is better not to use StarSan on it. But Iodophor works fine.

4. In my experience, the customer service is excellent.

Cons

1. The BrewJacket is expensive. (However, I believe it is relatively energy-efficient, and so depending on how much you use it the economics might work out better than you would initially think.)

2. The BrewJacket is noisy. I would not operate it in the room I am trying to sleep in. This is probably its most unfortunate aspect, as it is a product that would otherwise be very attractive for people in small apartments.

3. The BrewJacket should probably not be used with sour beers. The anodized aluminum rod should not be exposed to low pH environments. Some may advise you otherwise, but I will not use mine with sour beers.

 

The rod fits into a standard 5 gallon plastic carboy, but you have to drill a hole in the neck for the blowoff tube or airlock. (The rod itself occupies the mouth of the carboy and so you can't insert a blowoff tube or airlock there, as you ordinarily would.) The BrewJacket cannot be used with a glass carboy. There is more information here.

 

An easy way to manage temperature variability is to place the fermentor in a large bucket and fill the bucket with water. This increases the overall thermal mass so temperature swings are mitigated.

You can also control the actual fermentation temperature:

• Place frozen jugs (e.g., 2 liter soda bottles) in the water for cooling
• Use an aquarium heater in the water for warming

This is an economical solution but needless to say it is not a hands free operation.

Cheers!

 

I see they also sell lids with holes for airlocks and the immersion rod

 

Yes, that's right. For any fermenter with a large enough lid, you can drill both holes through the lid: one for the aluminum rod, one for the blowoff tube or airlock. For what I think of as a "traditional" plastic carboy, such as a BetterBottle, there is no lid, and the stopper is too small to accommodate both. Therefore it is necessary to drill a hole in the neck. But for a bucket or a Fermonster or something like that, a drilled lid is all you need.

 

The three things you would need to achieve the same heating/cooling of the brewjacket would be a fridge large enough to accommodate your fermentation vessel, the inkbird controller, and a fermwrap of some sort.

I personally use a full sized all fridge unit (no freezer) for my chamber, but I do have a smaller danby fridge at my office that would fit a 6.5g carboy. I got it years ago at Costco, but was probably in the $150ish range. The model inkbird controller I use, is the 308, which is only $35 on amazon. Then I use the branded fermwrap heater, which wraps around the fermentation vessel heating as needed via the controller.

Everything that minderbender said about the jacket is pretty spot on. I also have one, but do not use it any longer since moving to the fridge/controller/wrap setup.

All in all, if I had to do it all again, I would have just made the jump to the fridge/controller/wrap setup to start. It is cheaper ($215 vs $299 for the brewjacket) to start, then in the future if you grow your chamber to a freezer or full fridge you have the controller/wrap already. One additional benefit that the brewjacket just can't do is double as a kegerator. In my world, I tend to brew a batch at a time and use the same fridge as my kegerator in between. If I ever need to brew more frequently, I can bottle of the keg and or just add a full time kegerator. To expand capacity with brewjacket, you have to buy more brewjackets at $299 a pop.

All in all, I think you have to take a look at how much you brew now and if that will increase in the future. If you are content with brewing a single batch at a time and just bottling, then the brewjacket may be the way to go. If you think your commitment to the hobby will continue to grow, I suggest planning for the future. I have several kettles, carboys, brewjacket, and various tools I no longer use because I just bought for each time I expanded instead of buying for the future.

just my 2 cents......now back to work.

 

I think about the brewjacket for a minute but even 200 per (the set of 3) is too expensive, when a chest freezer can handle at least two fermentations at once..... For 600 dollars I can have a chest freezer doing two fermentaitons with temp control and a keezer... hmmmm I just need a fermwrap and a new chest freezer I guesss..

 

The BrewJacket is discussed in this months BA magazine: https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/15589/small-space-fermentation-with-brewjacket/

@minderbender, the information you posted in this thread would have been a useful addition to this article.

Cheers!

 

I think the points brought up by @HopsintheSack and @Jaguar10301 are exactly the right way to think about it. What it comes down to is that you have to do the math. You have to ask yourself what you want out of your temperature control system and what you're willing to pay for it. A lot of chest freezers, for instance, can handle 2-3 fermenters at once, which a BrewJacket obviously can't do. For some brewers that's a big deal, for others (including me) it's a non-issue. Same goes for mobility, same goes for using a glass carboy, same goes for brewing sours. There's no simple answer that is going to be applicable to all brewers.

I would also urge people to do the math on costs. The sticker price on the BrewJacket is high, but it is pretty much all-inclusive (except maybe for a drilled lid or two). When I looked around for a good chest freezer setup, I couldn't find anything that was much cheaper, once I factored in all the costs. (I was only looking at new equipment, there are probably bargains if you can get yours hands on used equipment.) And consider the costs (financial and environmental) of the electricity that it will take to run a chest freezer.

Thanks @JackHorzempa, I agree the article probably could have benefited from some more exploration of these issues, but then again it was a pretty short piece.

 

At a minimum the noise aspect should have been addressed. A number of years ago I had a friend that lived in a studio apartment in NYC. The BrewJacket would not have been a good choice for him unless he was willing to wear ear plugs when he went to sleep.

Cheers!

 

yeah when I was fully set up before I had two chest freezers and a beer fridge all that I got on craigslist. I don't think I paid more than 100 for each one... I also have two temp controllers. One is a two stage digital one.