Speidel Plastic Tanks

Hi all,
I was ready to order some inductor tanks until I saw these. Has anyone swapped out the spigot with a ball valve and dip tube to remove the trub and yeast like you would in a conical?
I know that it wouldn't be a complete removal but it would be easier than racking to a secondary. Also has anyone found replacement caps?

Leadpencil said:

Hi all, I was ready to order some inductor tanks until I saw these. Has anyone swapped out the spigot with a ball valve and dip tube to remove the trub and yeast like you would in a conical? I know that it wouldn't be a complete removal but it would be easier than racking to a secondary. Also has anyone found replacement caps?

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Morebeer.com will have the spare parts. caps, spigots, airlock, bung, lid seals......
Take a look

They have everything but spare caps.

Has anyone added a thermowell to a 30L? Did you drill the lid or the top of the vessel? Was thinking of the lid and fitting a stopper.

Can you use a fermwrap with the 30L or 20L tanks or would you need to use a brew belt or other method for independent heating? It looks like the spigot and handles might get in the way of the fermwrap on these two sizes... and i don't have a fermentation chamber yet to control my temps. Thanks

Hey Vismat,

That's a great question. Let me go check this out for you in our showroom to see if it would fit alright, and I'll get back to you later today. If someone else is already using it this way though let us know!

Cheers,
Matt

Alright - so the Fermwrap will fit on the 30L (you'll need to wrap it around the back, as the spigot would get in the way in the front). The 20L's handles will get in the way unfortunately, so that is not a possibility.

Cheers!

Jipper,

Wow, thanks for the quick reply and actually taking the time to check it out. I had been trying to decide between glass carboys, pet bottles, or buckets when I came across these on your site yesterday. I will def. be ordering a few of these as they seem like a great piece of equipment to expand my brewing with. I could get a brew belt for the 20L and the fermwrap for the 30L then.

Hey Vismat,

No problem - glad I could help! Yeah I actually was against these things for awhile, but am extremely satisfied with my 15.9 gallon now. It fits perfectly in my chest freezer, and transferring into two kegs is so much easier now than it was out of two carboys.

Let me know if you have any other questions, cheers!

Matt

The Fermwrap won't go all the way around the 30L. I still use it though.

You can drill a thermowell. I think the German website has lids. Back and forth with morebeer for a few months, but finally they said the have no intentions of buying lids.

I regret drilling the lid. If I could do it again I would have bought a large stopper with 2 holes.

I'm using a fermwrap wrapped around my 30l speidel tank with a pilates mat wrapped around it for insulation. A bungie cord around the whole thing keeps it tight. It's been keeping my saison at 90 degress with no problems.

I'm looking to pull the trigger on a few of these Speidel tanks but was wondering what the best size for 5 gallon batches of high gravity beers would be.....the 5.3 or the 7.9? I'd be afraid of some crazy krausen blowing off the airlock with a 5.3.....

Also, how do you guys accurately measure the temp inside one of these things while its fermenting?

donshizzles said:

I'm looking to pull the trigger on a few of these Speidel tanks but was wondering what the best size for 5 gallon batches of high gravity beers would be.....the 5.3 or the 7.9? I'd be afraid of some crazy krausen blowing off the airlock with a 5.3.....

Also, how do you guys accurately measure the temp inside one of these things while its fermenting?

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I have the 7.9 and i honestly don't think that you will EVER need a blowoff tube, or have to be worried about too much krausen in that thing, if you brew 5 gallon batches.

ill4delph said:

I have the 7.9 and i honestly don't think that you will EVER need a blowoff tube, or have to be worried about too much krausen in that thing, if you brew 5 gallon batches.

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I use that one as well, and it is awesome. It has almost 9 gallons of internal volume. I've done a couple of 5-5.5 gallon batches with the 1469-West Yorkshire yeast recently which is notorious for massive krausens, and I've had no blow-off. The latest, which is just finishing up, had probably 3 gallons of krausen on it, but nothing came out.

The awesome thing about the bubbler is that it is so huge that you can sit and count the bubbling rate out of the fermenter. Over my last two brews, I've followed the bubbling rate as a function of time, and it's made it really easy to see how the fermentation has progressed, and determine when it was done.

If you put a high enough gravity beer in there you'll need a blow off. I had 8 gallons of a 1.120 stout that blew out through the top of a 60L model with in 12 hours of pitching yeast. So never say never. I thought I wouldn't have needed one, boy was I wrong.

I know the plastic on these things is pretty thick......would sticking on a Fermometer work for temp measuring or no?

smokinghole said:

If you put a high enough gravity beer in there you'll need a blow off. I had 8 gallons of a 1.120 stout that blew out through the top of a 60L model with in 12 hours of pitching yeast. So never say never. I thought I wouldn't have needed one, boy was I wrong.

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Well yeah...if you do an 8 gallon batch, you are sure to need a blowoff. My previous post was geared around 5 gallon batches.

ill4delph said:

Well yeah...if you do an 8 gallon batch, you are sure to need a blowoff. My previous post was geared around 5 gallon batches.

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He was using the 60l fermentor though. not the 7.9 gal

Nothing stops WY3787. :rockin:

A Five gallon 1.070 dubbel blows through the airlock on the 7.9gal model.

Anyone else do any big dry hop IPAs in these?

I'm dry hopping today actually...2oz of Chinook in a 3 gal batch. Not sure if you consider that "big", but I figured I'd mention it.

I've had a string of bad luck with oxidation in my IPAs lately that were fermented in the speidel tank. It is very convenient to use the large lid when adding dry hops to a fermenter, so all of my IPAs this year went into the Speidel.

I am wondering if others have had issues with oxidation with IPA. My other batches (non ipa) have been fine. It's just when large amounts of dry hops (I am gonna say 5 oz whirlpool and 5 oz dry hop per 5 gallons) that there seems to be an issue, especially in lighter malt beer like IIPA.

Hmm. Could be due to cold crashing with such a large headspace.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=900.45

When I cold condition my beers in my speidel, I remove the bubbler and screw-on the spare cap that came with the fermenter. I might vent the fermenter once or twice while I'm chilling it down (I usually do it over 3-4 days), just to make sure I don't blow a seal, but it has worked great for me so far. There's no suck-back when that sucker is sealed tight. I probably wouldn't cool it down too low for too long though (maybe 35-40, but not 30 or something like that).

I threw it in the fridge one time tight and it collapsed inwards (nothing permanent). Has anyone destroyed their tank from cold crashing?

Im sure that this has been answered already, but after wasting 20mins searching this thread I could not find this addressed:

Can you use regular airlocks in these fermenters instead of their oversized ones? I'm thinking about buying once of these but it won't fit in my fermentation chamber with their huge airlock.

You need a stopper with a smaller hole. I think the size shows on the product page or comment section for the tanks.

Someone also put the spigot on top and attached a blow-off tube to that. Seemed to make the lowest profile possible.

For those using the 30L Speidels, what are you guys using to take a sample for a hydrometer reading?

I brew 5 gallon batches, and judging by the pics in this thread, there seems to be quite a bit of headspace in the 30L tank when it's filled with only 5 gals, so i'd prefer to buy a certain baster or wine thief that's long enough so I can just insert it inside the stopper/airlock opening to grab my sample without having to unscrew the entire lid. I also don't want to use the spigot for hydrometer readings so I can minimize infection.

I just use the spigot...i spray some starsan on the inside of the spigot just to sanitize it and take my sample that way. Then when im done i just spray it again, haven't had any issues with infection yet.

How do these compare to 7.9 gallon plastic buckets, for anyone who has used both? This is more than twice the price, trying to figure out if it's worth the extra money.

Chaffin said:

The only "cons" I see is not being able to use a thermowell (unless you use a different stopper and airlock) or a heating wrap. These would only be cons depending on your brewing setup.

Plus, would you still have to put a T-shirt or bag on this thing to keep light out? Or, would that plastic keep enought light out? Depending on your storage location of course.

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I simply put weldless thermowells (from Williams Brewing) on mine. Works perfectly with no leaks or issues. Fits right next the the spigot with plenty of room.

dave8274 said:

How do these compare to 7.9 gallon plastic buckets, for anyone who has used both? This is more than twice the price, trying to figure out if it's worth the extra money.

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I've done a few fermentations in buckets, and I prefer this. It's so much easier getting the top on, and it seals really well. I think you'll be happy with it.

What does everyone do for dry hopping if you're using the spigot? I really like the idea of using the spigot to transfer to my kegs, but I'm not sure about dry hopping in bags/mesh. Just wondering what everyone else does.

I transfer into the keg and dry hop there. I'm sure if you did a mesh bag you'd be fine though.

I'm trying to figure out if the 30L will fit in my ferm fridge or not. I'm good on the height, but I'm a little fuzzy on the width. It says the width is approx 13.5", but I don't know if that is the bottom measurement or what. It looks like bulges our a bit and then the handles add width as well. Could someone who has the 30L measure the widest part of the fermenter and also the width with the spigot included? Thanks!

After a few beers...I'm getting around 14inches from handle to handle.

That's what she said

Does anyone have the 20L? If so, what is the total volume for that one? It looks like the 30L is marketed a 7.9, but it sounds like it can hold upwards of 9 gallons

I have 2 of the 30L Speidels which I have used for about 2 years now. I absolutely love them. A 5 gallon batch rises slightly above the half way point on the vessel and provides plenty of head room for vigorous fermentations. I have seen no indications of a problem with lots of xtra head space on my resulting brews so far but would welcome any additional feedback on what would possibly be too much in this regard.
As many have said before these units have nice sturdy handles for moving the fermenter around. Are heavy duty plastic so substantial and no glass breakage problems. The large opening makes pouring wort into the jug easy and cleaning up after brewing a snap. Arm all the way to the bottom to reach the extremities. The lever spigot on the bottom makes bottling easy above the yeast/trub layer and allows easy harvesting of yeast.

A lot of positives and very few if any negatives that I have found or been made aware of.
The quality is top notch.

ddlr25 said:

Does anyone have the 20L? If so, what is the total volume for that one? It looks like the 30L is marketed a 7.9, but it sounds like it can hold upwards of 9 gallons

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