Spike Solo Owner's Thread

[RichardU]

For people who brew with the Spike Solo system -- what are your experiences?

After two batches on my 20 gallon system, my most important lesson so far is:

About ten minutes into the mash, the water level in the basket gets high (riptide pump at about 25%). I "refluidized" the grain bed with vigorous stirring, then scraped the bottom of the basked with my paddle. After that, the grain settled and never gave me another problem. This is now an item on my checklist.

I know some people have reported a problem with the basket recirculation hose dropping off the ledge. FWIW, I'm usine a 24" piece of thick-walled (1/8") silicone tubing and it stays on the ledge nicely.

I'm a strong believer in having pulleys to lift the basket. Even if you have the manpower to lift it, It's nice to be able to suspend the basket well above the kettle so it can continue to drain during the boil. When removing the basket, it's pretty easy to simply pull it to the side of the kettle as you lower it. I'm using a 4:1 pulley system so my wife will be able to handle it if she wants.

I'm wondering what others think is the maximum grain bill for this system. I'm planning a Danzig clone with a total mash and water volume of 73L (19.2 gal). Seems like I might need to sparge to be safe, although I'm not sure how much more volume I get from the basket extension above the top of the kettle.

On that note, kudos to Spike for making a basket that extends above the kettle. It's a perfect solution for the additional volume that is only needed during the mash.

Cheers, Richard

 

[Rubberband]

Brewed an IPA and I came up about 1 gal short of the recipe. I'm updating my equipment profile in beersmith to 1.0 gal. to correct this. The beer is in the secondary dry hopping but the gravity sample tasted great. I fully agree about the hoist, I used my deer hoist and it worked well and felt much safer. I hit my numbers, so the loss to hoses and trub is something I can live with.

One thing unrelated, I used my system to cook 5, 16 ounce NY strips via sous vide. 2 hours at 130 degrees F in the Spike kettle (used the basket) and then seared them in a pan for 1 min. per side, OUSTANDING!. Perfect medium rare all the way through.

I'm looking forward to a brew day, just need outdoor temps below 80 before I give it another go.

 

[MMX]

While I don't have a Spike Solo, I use a 'homemade' version (I like to think Spike used my idea!) that's pretty much the same thing - Blichmann electric kettle with custom stainless steel basket.

I too have to control my recirc speed depending what I'm mashing/grist size/etc., balancing the level between the basket and kettle level. I've 'stuck' a mash due to some very finely ground grains, however stuck mashes are a thing of the past with these. I lifted the basket and it took over an hour to drain out instead of ~10-15 minutes. However no mess or extra work with a 'stuck' mash, only extra time.

On the pulley note - I installed a unistrut rail on the ceiling in the garage with some rollers and an electric hoist. To lift the basket out I just push a button and let it hang to drain out while I'm sparging. I'll let it drain until the boil starts. Then move the basket out of the way on the rollers and lower. The hoist has other benefits I use it for as well - I hang a grain hopper with my milled grain on it, the hopper has a slide gate on the bottom so I can control the rate at which I'm adding grist. Makes it nice and easy to stir vigorously and stabilize temperatures of the mash. Also hang the hop spider on it toward the end of the boil so that drains completely as well.

My maximum capacity is about a 27lb grain bill with 1.8L/lb grain strike water for a 10 gallon batch for the mash. *Note - prior to mashing in, I heat water and pump it to a cooler above the kettle (sparge water, extra hot water for whatever).

Ha, nice work on the sous vide! I did a brisket in the brew kettle that was amazing...no knife needed - it cut easily with the fork!

 

[Rubberband]

Ha, nice work on the sous vide! I did a brisket in the brew kettle that was amazing...no knife needed - it cut easily with the fork!

An entire Packer Brisket! That's impressive, where did you get a vacuum sealer or ziploc bag that big? I enjoy smoking brisket, it's my favorite cut of meat but it takes me about 7 hours to cook and I run the smoker hot compared to most. I would be very curious to know how long you have to soak a brisket, I would guess 12 to 15 hours at a minimum. Needless to say, I'm impressed.

 

[RichardU]

Short Circuited Brewers did a great video on creating a Brewfather profile for the Solo.



I highly recommend Brewfather. I used Beersmith previously, but no more.

 

[RichardU]

unistrut rail on the ceiling in the garage with some rollers and an electric hoist

Do you have pics / info on the hoist and grain hopper? Sounds impressive.

 

[MMX]

The chunk of brisket was about 12"x12"x1.5", it fit in the largest vacuum seal bag we had. Cooked it 3 days, starting at 137 and ramping up over that time to 145. Then got the grill as hot as I could and seared each side.

 

[MMX]

Do you have pics / info on the hoist and grain hopper? Sounds impressive.

Attached. The hopper was just pieced together ductwork with the bottom of the bucket removed and a plastic slide gate from Menards. McMaster unistrut, unistrut rollers, and a Harbor Freight hoist (440lbs I think).

 

[RichardU]

Attached

Nice. Thanks for posting.

 

[Rubberband]

[/QUOTE]

Short Circuited Brewers did a great video on creating a Brewfather profile for the Solo.

I highly recommend Brewfather. I used Beersmith previously, but no more.

I saw the Short Circuited Brewer video and it was helpful but I needed to tweak it for my set-up. I have Brewfather, at least I downloaded the app and gave it a try but I really don't like the subscription model for the software. I have an old version of Brewsmith (one version behind the most recent) that I have owned for a few years and I am very happy with that. It's part of being older, once you learn something, you don't like to change it.

I am impressed with brisket, that bad boy would have been great with a nice Porter. You certainly opened my eyes to the possibilities, I'll be trying a Tri-Tip Roast this weekend.

 

[Homebrew54]

Short Circuited Brewers did a great video on creating a Brewfather profile for the Solo.



I highly recommend Brewfather. I used Beersmith previously, but no more.

I used this and it worked great! I have brewed a wee Heavy and had no problems using this profile!

 

[Cellar_Dweller]

Does anyone have a recommendation for an immersion chiller that works best with the 20 gallon Solo? I'm currently looking at getting a Jaded King Cobra and asking if they can customize the bend so it hangs just above the element but wanted to see if there was a better solution. The low profile design should be good for the 5 to 6 gallon batches I normally run.

 

[pdcm]

Does anyone have a recommendation for an immersion chiller that works best with the 20 gallon Solo? I'm currently looking at getting a Jaded King Cobra and asking if they can customize the bend so it hangs just above the element but wanted to see if there was a better solution. The low profile design should be good for the 5 to 6 gallon batches I normally run.

FWIW, you might also try reaching out to CuS.S. Brewing and see if they're able to do custom work as well.

 

[Cellar_Dweller]

FWIW, you might also try reaching out to CuS.S. Brewing and see if they're able to do custom work as well.

Thanks for the idea. I sent them a message.

 

[Rubberband]

Second brew day under my belt with the Spike solo. I have resolved my mash re-circulation problem with the hose falling into the grain bed with a Lock Line manifold, it worked really well. As for the hoist, I will never lift the basket alone again. I used my deer hoist to lift the basket and I didn't even use the basket hooks, I just left the basket hanging on the hoist. It worked well, I was able to dump the basket into wheel barrow while the basket was hanging from the hoist after it was done draining into the boil kettle.

The last detail was my system profile, because I was under target volume into the fermenter. I am trying to get 11 gallons of wort at the end of the day, I split my batches into two fermenter and I lose about .5 gallons to each fermenter. I added 1.00 gallon to loss in the hoses and trub which yielded about 11.6 gallons after the boil. I did compress the grain bed to get a little extra liquid from the grains but it wasn't much. All-in-all, it was a very good brew day with a lot less stress from from the first brew day. I did miss my OG before boil by about 0.006 too high but at the end of the day, so I may tweek my efficiency up a little in Brewsmith for the next batch, I need more data points at this time.

I am checking out CuS.S. Brewing for a chiller, I used my old 25' immersion chiller to cool the beer and it took about 45 minutes to reach 70. It was a lot less stressful however, than the plate chiller which plugs up a little too easily. Here are photos from Brew Day 2.

 

[Jcpomp]

Brewed 4 batches on my spike solo and efficiency is crap.. anyone run into this issue? Any tips?

 

[coronel]

Hi! I'm trying to calculate the consumption of energy, total per batch of 10gal, with the 240v 5500w. Does someone have the total time the heating element was on? I need the kw used in one batch, to calculate the costs in my country. I would love help with this! Thank you!

 

[Fidelity101]

Brewed 4 batches on my spike solo and efficiency is crap.. anyone run into this issue? Any tips?

Did you ever figure out why the efficiency was lower than expected?

Also, has anyone used a lift to remove the colander rather than lifting manually? If so, did you fabricate a bar that attaches to both handles ... or how did you pick it up? I’m thinking a pulley with a 6’ rope with hooks on each end. That way each side is 36” so I’m not putting too much inward force on the handles.

 

[cekramer]

Did you ever figure out why the efficiency was lower than expected?

Also, has anyone used a lift to remove the colander rather than lifting manually? If so, did you fabricate a bar that attaches to both handles ... or how did you pick it up? I’m thinking a pulley with a 6’ rope with hooks on each end. That way each side is 36” so I’m not putting too much inward force on the handles.

I picked up a game hoist at Harbor Freight for about $15 and it works great for lifting the basket to drain it. You can also get similar game hoists off places like Amazon. The width of the hanger part of the hoist is perfect for the 20 gallon solo basket. I screwed an eye hook to one of the floor joists in my basement and hooked the hoist up to that. It has worked really well so far.

 

[Homebrew54]

Brewed 4 batches on my spike solo and efficiency is crap.. anyone run into this issue? Any tips?

Stir the mash while recuirculating a few times then let it settle out for the last ten minutes. That helped me.

 

[Fidelity101]

I agree. I only have one 10 gallon batch under my belt but the efficiency numbers were spot on according to the profile in brewfather. I stirred as I added the grains, stirred after 10 minutes and stirred again about 30 minutes into the mash. My mistake was crushing the grain to 0.032" which did result in a stuck mash...which made me stir more frequently than I would have otherwise done. I also had to stir up the mash as I removed the grains because it would have taken hours to get the wort out of the grains otherwise (not something I'd recommend doing!) I'm going to try 0.035" next time which I believe is the size recommended by Spike anyway.

 

[PINbeer]

Joined the club with a 15 g Solo TC. Did my first brew on the Spike Solo yesterday and I've got to tell you I feel like a pro with this thing. So sturdy, so professional looking, etc. Quite a shift from the cooler mash tun / plain stainless pot I've been using for the past decade. Apologies in advance for the long post. Just wanted to weigh in with my experience.

Went pretty well and I have high hopes for the future once I get things arranged. I did have a problem where the level mash wasn't draining as fast as the recirculated wort was coming back into the top. Did the same stirring as mentioned by @RichardU above. Also turned down the pump to a very small amount - what felt like less than I've seen youtube evaluations use. Not sure how to measure the "1/4" open that is recommended. It would be nice for Spike to make a high quality how to video like the have for some of their other products. Anyway, I assume this is just a bit of trial and error. Maybe need to consider my crush as that basket really doesn't let much through. I only had barley in there. I'm worried that if I do a recipe with oats it'll be worse.

I do think that when this happened, my element may have come partially uncovered. I certainly heard wort dripping from the bottom of the basket onto the wort level below. And I thought I smelled some caramelization. My element did turn mostly black with burned sugar. I was able to get most of it off with PBW and a light scouring pad afterwards. Is this expected? Or is burned on deposit expected during a normal brew? Or is it because the element became uncovered?

I also noticed at the beginning of the mash, the temp would range up to 9 degrees temporarily according to the temp prob. I did autotune. But when it dropped to 149 (mash set to 150), it would turn on the element and go quickly up to 157 or even 158 before dropping back down. It stopped doing this about 15 mins in and held very steady. I am thinking this could be because of the lack of wort below the basket. Once I adjusted the flow the larger amount of wort it was heating would have resisted the temperature rise.

I did have some trouble getting the pump to start working sometimes. I just had it sitting on the floor. I'd like to mount it for optimal use, but need to figure out which way to do that. In pictures of their 3 tier system, it looks like they mount the outflow straight towards the floor. Any recommendations for this? I was able to generally get it to work by cycling the pump on and off two or three times and / or changing the orientation of the pump temporarily.

Please post any follow up solutions on the custom immersion chiller. I imagine that one could be made that straddles the element. Not sure if I want to try to bend my existing one to modify it. I'm sure I'd end up cracking it in the process.

I cheaped out on buying the counterflow in hopes that I could use my IC - maybe insert the basket after cleaning to protect the element. The depth for a 5 gallon batch is way too shallow for that though. I may break down and get a counterflow, but I'm really not trying to spend another $200. I emailed Spike about selling theirs separate from a system and am waiting to hear back. It would be nice to be able to do a nice whirlpool without the interference of the IC.

Lastly, I'm thinking of also investing in a condensing lid. I am brewing in a small room in the basement with no ventilation. Temporarily, I used some fans to send the steam into the larger part of the basement. I don't want ot do this too long though. I was going to drill a hole and build a vent hood, but I think I'm going to end up spending almost as much as the condensing lid ($300). And, I keep seeing people struggle with drips and spill over of steam around their vent. Anyone using the lid with theirs yet?

OK, that's probably enough for now. Looking forward to watching this thread for more tips and advice.

 

[9Kegs]

I certainly heard wort dripping from the bottom of the basket onto the wort level below. And I thought I smelled some caramelization. My element did turn mostly black with burned sugar. I was able to get most of it off with PBW and a light scouring pad afterwards. Is this expected? Or is burned on deposit expected during a normal brew? Or is it because the element became uncovered?
[/QU

If you can hear dripping, your element is in the danger zone of being scorched if it fires. You shouldn't be scrubbing burned on deposits at the end of your brew day.

 

[user 295610]

I cheaped out on buying the counterflow in hopes that I could use my IC - maybe insert the basket after cleaning to protect the element. The depth for a 5 gallon batch is way too shallow for that though. I may break down and get a counterflow, but I'm really not trying to spend another $200. I emailed Spike about selling theirs separate from a system and am waiting to hear back. It would be nice to be able to do a nice whirlpool without the interference of the IC.

Lastly, I'm thinking of also investing in a condensing lid. I am brewing in a small room in the basement with no ventilation. Temporarily, I used some fans to send the steam into the larger part of the basement. I don't want ot do this too long though. I was going to drill a hole and build a vent hood, but I think I'm going to end up spending almost as much as the condensing lid ($300). And, I keep seeing people struggle with drips and spill over of steam around their vent. Anyone using the lid with theirs yet?

I bought the CFC with my Solo+ 10G setup and it was pretty awesome with the first batch. It helps our incoming city water is 49F right now, but I was able to transfer 5.5 gallons of 180F wort to my fermenter in about 5 minutes with an outlet temp of 68F. The extra temp probe with CFC allows you to move the kettle prob plug to the CFC outlet and watch the outflow temp real time to throttle the wort flow. It's almost too easy. Takes a bit more to clean a CFC afterward, but I just pushed PBW through the whole system afterward and then a final flush at the end. Worked like a charm.

I also invested in the condensing lid, as I brew in my basement and didn't want to deal with installing a hood. It's all pretty straight forward, and setup is easy while the basket is draining after mash. Once you pull the basket completely, add the lid and you're ready to boil. Since it was my first brew on my Solo+ I was fiddling with the element power volume a ton to control the boil. Had to go all the way down to 35%. During all of that I had the 4" cap off quite a bit and lost about 0.75 gallons during an hour boil. Still not bad, and after clean up was done I could barely tell I'd just brewed with little to no smell. It works great.

 

[Joel Pollard]

I just purchased a Spike Solo 20 and I'm planning my first brew day on it for sometime in early January. One question I have moving from a three vessel system to a single vessel system: I've used a hop stopper in the past and had a lot of success, but I don't think one will work with this system because of the heating element. What method have y'all found that works best for separating hop additions from the wort?

 

[RichardU]

I previously used a hop basket, but decided to try without on this system. Turns out whirlpooling does a great job of pushing hops into the center. When transferring to the fermenter, watch as the level gets close to the bottom and hops start moving to the intake tube ... then kill the pump. Works great, even on a hoppy beer and I have one less thing to clean.

 

[PINbeer]

If you can hear dripping, your element is in the danger zone of being scorched if it fires. You shouldn't be scrubbing burned on deposits at the end of your brew day.

Thanks, yeah, I figured this was not what was supposed to happen. Need to drain faster, or recirculate slower.

 

[PINbeer]

I bought the CFC with my Solo+ 10G setup and it was pretty awesome with the first batch....Worked like a charm.

Thanks for sharing the experience. I heard back from Spike and they don't know when they will be getting them in. And they will be $450 when available. I don't know if that was the original price with a system..., but wow, that's a bit spendy for me. I'll probably go with another option for half that much.

Appreciate the thoughts on the condenser lid. Sounds like that's the way to go.

 

[Fidelity101]

I just finished my second batch on the Spike Solo 20g system. The grain crush was 0.035" using a brand new electric mill from morebeer.com. MaltZilla Motorized Malt Mill w/ Premium Diamond Rollers | MoreBeer

During the 60 minute mash, I stirred at 15 minutes in and again at 30 minutes in. This worked great and the wort was clear BUT when it came time to raise the basket and drain it would take 2-3 hours to drain out if I just left it alone. Because of the slow drain rate, I've had to stir the mash in order to get the wort out and that has caused a lot of grain material to get into the boil. This most recent batch I estimate about 1 pound of grain was inside the boil kettle, but of course I didn't notice this until transferring into the fermenters.

0.035" is the recommended setting according to Spike so what am I doing wrong? The mash felt like a brick when trying to stir it at the end but the efficiency numbers have been spot on. I am inclined to move up to 0.040" next time or even 0.050" but I'd like to hear from anyone else who has experience with this morebeer motorized grain mill.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/maltzilla-motorized-malt-mill-premium-diamond-rollers.html

 

[user 295610]

During the 60 minute mash, I stirred at 15 minutes in and again at 30 minutes in. This worked great and the wort was clear BUT when it came time to raise the basket and drain it would take 2-3 hours to drain out if I just left it alone. Because of the slow drain rate, I've had to stir the mash in order to get the wort out and that has caused a lot of grain material to get into the boil. This most recent batch I estimate about 1 pound of grain was inside the boil kettle, but of course I didn't notice this until transferring into the fermenters.

https://www.morebeer.com/products/maltzilla-motorized-malt-mill-premium-diamond-rollers.html

I'm new to the Spike Solo system too, so take this all with a grain of salt. Are you recirculating during mash with the pump? If so and that's working without issue, you must be getting some weird compaction when you remove the basket.

Have you tried "squeezing the bag" as opposed to stirring the grains to help the wort drain from the basket? I used a sanitized tupperware container to press down on the grains and this helped immensely to get the last of the wort out since I don't sparge. I got some solids push though too, but it wasn't too bad.