Pumped to support Wisconsin, I'm from Appleton, went to college at UWM, saving up for some Spike equipment. Always favored Blichmann but Spike is quickly earning top spot.
Bought mine a little over a month ago and just finally got to set it up after the electrician and plumber finished routing new circuits and lines to where it will sit. Can't wait to use the product and will make a video for the brew days on y'alls system. Thanks! Hopefully I can save up and get a fermenter from you guys one of these days also. First all grain batch T-2 days.
Wow I wish this had been around about a year ago! I built an identical system with lesser quality kettles for about the same that this cost. Great stuff guys!
100% agree. Plus you guys have much better quality kettles than what I got :< You guys do some awesome stuff. Should be upgrading my boil kettle to 20+ gallons soon.
Ben, you're are amazing! I know nothing about brewing... I'm just here for research. But after your videos I feel so educated. Sadly, that's not the case with other peoples videos (Brewha, Brewzilla...). If ever I were to invest in a home brewery, I'd be leaning toward the Spike system.
I just bought the 30 gallon kettle and think the quality is awesome. Only problem I'm thinking about now is putting PTFE tape on the inside threads. Wouldn't this stuff leech into the wort? Also, I'm thinking it will give bacteria a spot to hide.
Pipe tape is chemically inert and good to 550F. NPT threads and PTFE tape are very common among sanitary applications like your home plumbing. Also your wort is boiled thus killing anything that could ever cause an issue.
Love my system. Wish you would also have a video to explain the BCS particulars. I've figured it out, but it would help a lot of people to see that too. This video gave me a few more insights, which I will be applying on my next brew.
Ohhhh HOW I cannot wait for the new year ...this is my Christmas present to myself ...albeit one piece at a time... except for the controller, I'm an electronic -electrical tech from my Navy career so can build one myself...Love the products...
Beautiful system. The individual loop controllers will do the job, but that's quite a bit of button fiddling. A touchscreen HMI with a little PLC could really simplify the interface, but would add to the cost. This is a reasonable solution and the learning curve probably isn't too steep for most folks.
@@StanSwan really? How did you do yours? being able to build one of these is kinda hard right? You'd need to find all the parts from different places and be pretty engineer savvy?
B John its amazing, the control over temps is something i have been looking for. Clean up is really nice as well. Overall great quality. I drove over the border to pick mine up. The spike guys were awesome in helping with documentation
Sweet setup! I've been away for a few years. It's nice to see electric brewing has come a long way and is the way to go now a days. I hope to buy your 10 gal system in a couple of years.
Great looking setup. If i could afford it I would be there. I would love to see something like "water heater jackets" for the setup for better energy efficiency.
Do you recirculate in the boil kettle without a filter? Aren't hop particles getting inside your pump? If have had trouble in the past and its a PITA to clean the inside of a pump every brewday to keep it clean
I emailed you guys too but will you ever make a 5 gallon system? Guaranteed customer if so lol. I just don't have enough time to consume 10 gallons of beer and brew as often as I would like.
That's a nice system, and I can't seem to find a bad word said about your products in the home brewing forums. Have you considered doing a comparison between your turnkey and some others? Blichmann has a similar setup (Pro Pilot Series) that seems to come in slightly lower in cost. SS Brewtech has a new 1bbl setup that looks pretty "fancy schmancy" but comes in at nearly double the cost of your rig. I like the buy-once cry-once mentality. But what makes your product stand out above the others?
I saw your website and the 3 options you have and while I'm certainly not prepared to buy today this is on my list as I expect to officially have my brewery going in 1-2 years. My question is about size. What size batches does your equipment make at once? Looking at the size in the picture it looks to be maybe 10-15 gallons. Thanks!
Is there a reason the timer only uses seconds instead of the traditional hour and minutes? Also, can you brew a 5 to 6 gallon batch in a 15 gallon setup?
In the HLT, what is the top valve recirculating? I'm not asking about the recirculating the wort through the HERMS coil, I know what that is. I'm just not sure what are your recirculating using the top valve in the HLT.
The recirc port in the HLT recirculates the water at the bottom near the element up towards the top. This gives a consistent temp throughout the entire tank.
What a great system they've done the research for ya. got high quality equipment and put everything you need together. I'm saving up for this. In the mean time Spike Brewing if you have a giveaway for one of your systems put my name in the hat for it plz. An thx Sincerely thanks for the video. Cant wait to be a home brewer on one of these.
The copper counter flow chiller is specially designed to chill wort. The HLT does not work well to cool wort. The false bottom is optimized to filter 99% of grain. We would never sell equipment that did not work as intended.
The output limit there is however much wort you are comfortable boiling in that kettle. Most people find filling their kettles anything past 80% puts them in a precarious boil-over situation. You could probably get away with a 40 gallon output but that's an odd size for a fermentor. But one barrel (31 gallons) is much safer and would be compatible with most off-the-shelf conicals.
How would I do FWH (First Wort Hops) with this system, as FWH involves adding a portion of the hops to the boiler at the very beginning of the sparging process, allowing these hops to steep as the sparging completes and remaining in the kettle throughout the boil. Add the hops to the boiler as soon as you have finished recirculating the first runnings.
Hey Matt. I do a lot of first wort hopping in my Spike System. It works exactly how you guessed. Personally, I just have the FWH pellets sitting in the empty boil kettle from the start of the brew day (so I don't forget them). Then once the lauter/sparge process begins the boil kettle is filled with your wort and you have your FWH hops ready to do their thing.
I live in northern California and I have recently purchased a pot still need help learning to use it can anyone help please temperatures and need some parts gauges and such
Hey SB, is there any thought in getting distribution to Australia or is it available already if so who do I need to contact, love this system. Reason I ask is there is very little good quality full systems for sale here Thanks
We do sell the system internationally. You can go to the link below to find more information and submit your info. Our customer service team will work with you from there. Cheers! spikebrewing.com/pages/international-shipping-information
I haven't seen anyone ask for that before! We do not however we do have an animation of the piping which can be seen here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lmNASW2ToLA.html&t
Thinking the same thing. As an ME and mechanical contractor, I understand P&ID's better than I do watching a video. I'm a newbie and my eyes got crossed watching the set up!
Spike, is there any way this system can be converted or have the option of using Natural Gas instead. This for me, would be the most efficient approach. I am in the market for a system like this. Thank you
The Spike System can't be converted but we can do custom gas fired systems all the time. Shoot us an email and we can help design something for you! info@spikebrewing.com
It's not a chiller. It's a HERMS coil. (Heat Exchanged Recirculation Mash System). The point of a HERMS system is to maintain a consistent mash temperature through a heat exchanger placed in the hot liquor tank.
@@SpikeBrewing Looks nice I have a 27 gallon one I bought about 15 years ago. I use my wort chiller in there. I just pour it out of my boiling kettle into a bucket and dump it in. I have a mash tun with a pump and false bottom. Uses a 110k btu gas burner. I played with electric elements but was not sure if they would scorch the wort? I use one inline on my recirc pump to keep the sparge at 165.
