| |
1. How long does it take to chill beverages using conventional
methods?
In a refrigerator, it takes about 4 hours for both cans and bottles. In
a freezer, it takes 50 minutes (but don't let it stay longer than
that or it will freeze, and possibly explode).
In ice water, it takes about 20 minutes for cans and 25 minutes for bottles.
These chill times are defined as bringing the beverage from room temperature
(77°F/25°C) to a cold drinking temperature (43°F/6°C)
2. Why doesn't a carbonated beverage explode when you open it after
being chilled in the Cooper Cooler?
Because the beverage is rotated, not shaken. It is not simple to explain,
as it involves scientific concepts such as solubility, Henry's law and
nucleation, among others.
To explain why carbonated beverages don't fizz over when rotated, you
have to know why they do fizz over when shaken. It has to do with the air pocket.
A 'carbonated beverage' is one in which carbon dioxide is dissolved in
the liquid under pressure (that's Henry's Law). When the pressure is reduced
(upon opening), the liquid is capable of holding less carbon dioxide
(C02),
and the CO2 will come out of solution. So all carbonated beverages fizz
upon opening. Whether they fizz over (liquid comes out of the container)
depends on how quickly CO2 comes out of solution.
In order for CO2 to come out of solution, it needs a 'nucleation site'
to do so. Those nucleation sites can be either gaseous pockets, or an
irregularity along the wall. (Look at how a stream of bubbles form on
a specific spot on a glass of beer or soda. You can't see it, but that
spot is an irregularity.)
When a beverage is shaken, the air pocket is broken up into a zillion
small pockets dispersed throughout the beverage. When the container is
opened, CO2 in solution has sites all over the place, and it comes out
of solution so quickly, that the liquid has no time to get out of the
way, and it rises up and out, that is, it fizzes over.
When a beverage is rotated, the air pocket basically stays intact. There
are no nucleation sites dispersed throughout, and the usual slow decarbonation
takes place at the infrequent irregularities, and at the surface.
3. How much ice do you need?
Ice is melted every time you chill a beverage. The amount of ice is the
same as if you added the ice directly to the beverage. This amounts to
roughly 4 typical ice cubes (25 ml each) for each beverage chilled.
One tray of ice (assuming 16 cubes about an inch each side) will chill
2 beverages (12 ounces). Two trays of ice will chill 6 beverages.
For the first tray, about 8 ice cubes are melted in making the re-circulating
water cold. The remaining 8 cubes are then available to chill 2 beverages.
The second tray of ice will chill 4 because the re-circulating water is
already cold.
4. Why do bottles take longer to chill than cans?
Two reasons. The material is thicker in bottles, and the material acts
like a thermal insulator. Bottles, whether plastic or glass, act as insulators.
Aluminum is a good conductor of heat or cold.
5. What is the coldest I can get a beverage with the Cooper Cooler?
You can't get the re-circulating water lower than its freezing point (32°F/0°C).
You can't get the beverage colder than the re-circulating water, but you
can get it to that temperature if you run an extra long Cooper Cooler
cycle.
However, if you add a solute (like salt or ethanol) to the recycling water
to lower the freezing temperature, you can chill your beverage below the
freezing temperature of water. BE WARNED. SALT WILL CORRODE THE UNIT AND
VOID THE WARRANTY. Ethanol in the form of ordinary spirits works well,
although it can get expensive.
6. What is the hottest I can get a beverage with the Cooper
Cooler?
The hottest you can get a beverage is the temperature of the re-circulating
water you add. Don't add boiling water. Use hot tap water. Adding water
any hotter than 140°F/60°Cand the Cooper Cooler might be deformed. If
you are using the Cooper Cooler to warm a baby bottle, the milk or formula
will never be hotter than the water you add to the unit.
7. What if my beverage in not able to rotate or spin since it is
non-cylindrical?
Use the "NO SPIN" option.
8. What is the
largest size bottle, can, etc... that will fit in the Cooper Cooler?
The Cooper Cooler
will fit a container with a diameter that is not larger than 3.25
inches/82.55 millimeters. Most 750mL wine bottles will fit in the Cooper
Cooler. Please note certain Champagne/sparkling wine bottles may not fit
in the Cooper Cooler since they use thicker glass and therefore are of
larger diameter than a typical 750mL wine bottle.
9.
How does the Cooper Cooler compare to other beverage/drink chillers or Peltier/Thermo-electric chillers?
There are 2 main types of chillers/coolers that are in direct
competition to the Cooper Cooler:
A) Peltier chillers
which are also called thermo-electric chillers. Let's first
quickly explain how these devices work using the Peltier Effect or
Principle. Simply put, the Peltier Effect occurs when you run electricity
through two dissimilar metals or through two dissimilar semi-conductor materials which causes one side
to become hot and the other to become cold. The cold side is in direct
contact with the metal of the chill chamber which in turn over time
gets cold. This in turn chills the surrounding air. The wine bottle
is placed into the unit in a vertical orientation through an opening
on top of the unit into the chill chamber. These devices are only useful for maintaining your
wine bottle's current temperature and are not useful for rapidly chilling
a warm wine bottle. In fact, the more truthful marketers of these devices
will even state in their instruction manual that the wine bottle must
already be chilled before using their device or else it will take hours to
chill it down to a realistic serving temperature. A regular refrigerator
will actually chill much faster than these devices since they are
completely sealed to allow the cold air to do its job of chilling the
bottle. As stated these devices do not completely enclose the entire wine
bottle and hence whatever cold air is produced can easily escape. Because
of this, some manufacturers include a collar to wrap around the bottle's
neck to prevent this, however this still does not do much for chilling the
bottle.
HOW DOES THE
COOPER COOLER COMPARE: The Cooper Cooler is over 100 times faster
than these Peltier devices because ice cold water is a much more efficient
means of transferring cold versus cold air. To quantify the difference,
water is 800 times denser than air at sea level and in turn makes it a
perfect chill transfer medium. Even super cold air at -100°F/-73°C would
not beat the transfer abilities of ice cold water at 32°F/0°C. There are
other scientific reasons why water is a perfect cold transfer medium, but
are beyond the scope of this FAQ section. Also, these Peltier devices can
only be used on wine bottles. Simply put, the Cooper Cooler is much faster
and more versatile in what it can chill than these devices. The only real
way to use these Peltier devices is to chill your wine with a Cooper
Cooler and use these devices to maintain their temperature when it is a
hot day if you are not able to drink it fast enough before it starts to
warm up.
B) Water and ice
based chillers with an impeller at the bottom. In these products,
the wine bottle is placed in an upright or vertical orientation and the
user places ice and water that surrounds the bottle. There is also a product
that is a variation on this in that it has frozen chilling packets that
are used in place of ice cubes. These chilling packets still need to be
frozen ahead of time in the freezer just like regular ice cubes and are actually less efficient than ice cubes for
chilling. In addition, they will only last to chill one wine bottle. At the bottom of the unit is an impeller or propeller that
then swishes the cold water around the stationary bottle.
HOW DOES THE
COOPER COOLER COMPARE: The Cooper Cooler is 2-3 times faster
than these chillers because of the rotating of the beverage
container which allows for much faster cooling of the internal liquid
contents. Also, the fact that the re-circulating ice cold water (32°F/0°C)
is being sprayed continuously over the beverage in a smooth or laminar
manner allowing for a much more efficient cold transfer over the beverage
container's surface--this is the reason why our NO SPIN mode is still
faster than these chillers. In addition, these wine chillers are not very
easy to use for chilling smaller single-serve beverage containers like
beer, soda, water cans or bottles. Our Cooper Cooler was specifically designed to be
versatile in the variety and size of beverage containers it can chill.
home>> |
