Spike vs. SS Brewtech vs. Blichman systems...

[RichBenn]

As someone who has been brewing since 1981, and have brewed on many (all homegrown) different systems, I'll offer a couple of thoughts:
1. If you are doing electric vs gas brewing, the heft of the kettles, especially the bottom, is not important. I know Spike make great stuff, but don't discount others.
2. I have a nice 3 vessel e-HERMS system currently. I can do amazing, repeatable efficiency with it. But it takes me all day, with fly sparging and all the prep and cleanup. I mention this because batch sparging in a cooler was faster. Beers were just as good. And now I try and do BIAB whenever possible due to the cleanup. Beers are still just as good. There is nothing wrong with easy, and as you spend more time with this hobby, you may ask yourself why you are spending more time than needed.

Edit - Oh, and like others have said, temperature control during fermentation is a MUST for good beer, IMHO. Buy or build a fermentation chamber. Could be a freezer or fridge with a temperature control remote probe that you put the fermenters inside of.

 

[Epos7]

I have a Spike kettle. It's very solid. I had them weld some custom tri-clover ports on, and the welding is flawless.

My one complaint is that the volume etchings are useless. They are off by as much as 0.3 gallons, but it isn't a consistent offset, so it's not as simple as adding 0.3 gallons to each measurement. I don't know if this degree of inaccuracy is unique to Spike - I suspect it isn't. Personally I would have preferred no volume etchings to inconsistent ones.

I wasn't impressed by their customer service when I inquired about the tolerances of the volume etchings. They were a bit snarky and condescending, and couldn't keep their story straight. First their tolerances were +/- 1/8" (about 0.1 gallons) then it turned into +/- 0.25 gallons "or so". Not very up-front, at all.

Anyway, good kettle. Bad volume etchings. Questionable technical support.

 

[AF1HomeBrew]

I've owned/used 15 & 20 G Blichmann Boilermakers, and replaced them with Spike Brewing 20G & 30G Custom Kettles. Could not be happier with the Spike kettles! The TC fittings are things of beauty and don't leak like the Blichmann Boilermakers.

 

[pocketmon]

Pocketmon, could you please explain some of the graph variables? For example, 'Fridge Temp'. My first thought is that this fridge contains the 5 gal cool water, but it appears that the fridge temp is set to the desired temp of the beer. So, perhaps I am wrong, because I would have thought that the fridge would need to be cold to keep the reservoir cold. Also, 'Room Temp' is the lowest temp, so this can't be the garage temperature, as you are chilling the fermenter within the garage. What is Aux Temp? Thank you.

This is kinda hacked version of BrewPi.
Fridge Temp is from Beer Sensor. The different values are caused by different filtering parameters.
Room Temp is the temperature of cool water.
Aux Temp is temperature reading from iSpindel, a DIY wireless hydrometer.

I made a lot of mistakes because of first time using this setup. Some information for you.
1. The cool water should at least 2~3 degree lower than the desired beer temperature. YMMV. I think at least 5 degree should be better.
2. At the first 2-3 days of fermentation, the water didn't get cooler because the heater transfer from air to water is so slow. If you can't get the temperature down, add some ice to the water.

When the water is like 5 degree lower than desired beer temperature, the cooling runs for less than 5 minutes every half hour. It became less than 5 minutes every hour after the 3rd day.

 

[alphakry]

I’m wondering what kind of power consumption you can expect from a standard brew day on one of these electric systems?

Anyone familiar with the Spike+ system know about what kind of kilowatt usage you can expect for a brew day?

 

[SpikeBrewing]

I’m wondering what kind of power consumption you can expect from a standard brew day on one of these electric systems?

Anyone familiar with the Spike+ system know about what kind of kilowatt usage you can expect for a brew day?

A typical brew day will use between 10-20 kW of electricity. Our electric costs $.13/kWh so a typical brew day costs $1.30-$2.60. Hope that helps!

 

[alphakry]

really appreciate the quick reply Spike. That's exactly what i'm looking for and have a better idea of what to expect now. I'm thinking of going with the 50A panel so i'm guessing those numbers would increase a bit with that.

 

[Floridagator]

This is an interesting thread, but I'm not sure there's a clear answer to who is better. I'm in the market for a 1/2BBL system right now, and if I'm going to drop $3000+ on equipment, it's going to be sanitary (triclamp) fittings, so Blichmann is out.

For the HLT, a simple 20 gallon Spike+ is the obvious choice. SS Brewtech doesn't offer a basic triclamp kettle. Their electric brewing kettle is close, but to my knowledge they don't sell it as a stand-alone item right now.

For the MLT, SS Brewtech has the really nice Infussion mash tun, but without sanitary fittings, and I wonder if it's worth $600. I'll probably go with another Spike+ kettle, and ask Ben to weld on a recirc port up top.

For the boil kettle, I really like the SS Brewtech BME kettle with the integrated whirlpool port. If Spike had something similar I'd get it, but they don't, so SS Brewtech it is. If Spike starts offering a TC recirculation port, I'd go that direction.

My whole system is Spike right now, and I think it's the best in the business, but again... there's no perfect solution. Get what suits your mission.

 

[Gameface]

Links aren't working, but I'll throw in my 2c about the companies after seeing them in person over the last two NHCs

Between Spike and SS...Spike. No question. Spike just feels and looks more solid. There are lots of folks out there that are gung-ho on the SS equipment but to me it feels a bit more flimsy than Spike equipment does.

If you're willing to spend the coin, Blichmann is phenomenal gear, and made in the US if that's important to you. SS/Spike may be welded and assembled in the US, but the manufacturing takes place in China. Again, it depends on whether or not this matters to you. Blichmann recently outsourced their "Anvil" line to compete with these new China-based brands hitting the market, but I was able to talk to John Blichmann briefly at NHC2016 and he talked about spending time touring various Chinese fabrication facilities to ensure the Anvil line was being made under acceptable standards and conditions instead of just sourcing to whoever was cheapest.

Bottom line? Spike if you're on the fence about price vs quality...Blichmann if US manufacturing matters to you.

Ultimately you can have anything manufactured in China to any quality standard you specify. Just like anywhere, it'll cost a little more to get better quality, but they can do it there just as easy as we can do it here. Their major advantage is labor costs, not making things poorly.

 

[alphakry]

This is an interesting thread, but I'm not sure there's a clear answer to who is better. I'm in the market for a 1/2BBL system right now, and if I'm going to drop $3000+ on equipment, it's going to be sanitary (triclamp) fittings, so Blichmann is out.

For the HLT, a simple 20 gallon Spike+ is the obvious choice. SS Brewtech doesn't offer a basic triclamp kettle. Their electric brewing kettle is close, but to my knowledge they don't sell it as a stand-alone item right now.

For the MLT, SS Brewtech has the really nice Infussion mash tun, but without sanitary fittings, and I wonder if it's worth $600. I'll probably go with another Spike+ kettle, and ask Ben to weld on a recirc port up top.

For the boil kettle, I really like the SS Brewtech BME kettle with the integrated whirlpool port. If Spike had something similar I'd get it, but they don't, so SS Brewtech it is. If Spike starts offering a TC recirculation port, I'd go that direction.

My whole system is Spike right now, and I think it's the best in the business, but again... there's no perfect solution. Get what suits your mission.

Have you seen their Spike+ turnkey system? I think this addresses a lot of what you mentioned above in terms of recirc ports...
https://spikebrewing.com/collections/spike-plus-systems