frequently asked questions<<

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.

10) Why is it important to serve wine at the proper temperature?

CLICK HERE for a link to a website that answers this question.

11) What is the proper or ideal serving temperature for wine?

Different wines need to be served at different temperatures. CLICK HERE  to a link that has a basic wine chilling temperature chart. The Cooper Cooler makes it easy to chill your warm room temperature wine to the proper serving temperature in minutes without all the guess work or hassle of conventional chill methods.
 

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