The Speidel Homebrewing Fermenter Review.

As I tell you in the video I'm very happy with the Speidel Fermenter. It's a really great piece of homebrewing equipment. Among its best features are:


Large mouth opening for easy cleaning
A spigot at the bottom for quick & easy transferring
Heavy duty HDPE plastic
Lightweight
Has sturdyhandles




I bought the 30L version, which is 7.9 gallons. The next size down is 5.3 gallons which is a little tight if you're doing 5 gallon batches. Personally, I do 6 gallon batches with 5.5 going into the fermenter, so the 30L version was the best option.

My biggest knock against it is that it's not clear – something I like about my plastic carboys. I've also read that some people have rough/sharp spots in theirs where the neck meets the main part. I don't have that in mine – there is a seam there but overall it's pretty smooth. Another knock is that the airlock constantly gets stuck in the rubber stopper and it's not easy to remove.

However the pros outweigh the very few cons about this fermenter and I highly recommend it.

Full Video Transcript:

Hey everyone is Billy brought here from the Homburg Academy and I'm reviewing the spidel fermenter. I got this from more beer a little over a year ago but using it for over a year now so I have a pretty good idea of what his strong points are and I'll also tell you the couple of things that I don't like so much about it.

So let's get into it! So these are German made fermenters and they come in all different sizes. this one is 30 litres which works out to 7.9 gallons and then there's also a smaller version. And these are the two most common ones that home brewers use and that smaller version is 5.3 gallons.

I really like the 30liter version because yeah I do five gallon batches but I normally transfer five and a half gallons into the fermenter to wind up with five gallons in the keg or the bottles. So you know when I transfer five and a half in here and I get a big blow off maybe.

I'm brewing a Belgian ale that goes crazy it's really nice to have the extra headspace in here so I think this is a really good size for five gallon batches. You could go with the five point three gallons, but it's going to get a little bit tight the one good thing if you are doing that is that the airlock is freaking huge. So this thing is not going to clog easily and I'll show you more of these accessories. In a minute, so what I really like about this the number one thing I like about this is how easy it is to clean. It's just a dream to clean this compared to you know most carboys, glass or plastic, with the tiny little necks look at the wide mouth on this thing.

So it's super easy to reach in there and get off any gunk now it is plastic. So you want to be careful you don't want to use a brush or anything and you want to be careful not to scratch it. I recommend using a sponge or even a microfiber cloth to get in there and scrub it but the large mouth opening is in my opinion the number one feature about this thing.

The other really awesome thing about this is the plastic the plastic is HDPE plastic and it's really heavy-duty stuff . When you get this you're not going to open up the box and think to yourself oh man this is just a crappy product made out of the plastic and is low-quality. 

Exactly the opposite you're going to get and think man this this plastic is awesome it's really heavy-duty stuff.

It just feels like it's well-made and it's going to hold up to the beading it could take during your home brewing and it's really lightweight too. And it has these fantastic handles again you want to be able to trust any handles you have on your ferment. The last thing you want to do is to drop it or have your handles break and your get beer everywhere, but these things are really heavy-duty.

It just makes it super easy to carry the fermenter around and it's also really lightweight too even though it's a bigger fermenter. It's eight gallons so bigger the most carboys that people are using the the plastic itself doesn't add much weight at all to the weight of the fermenter.

So now on to the accessories; we have the lid for this thing so this has two pieces to it it has this outer threaded ring and then this inner portion so it goes like that and then I like how there's a rubber o-ring here on the inner portion. So you get a good seal, so you stick that on there and then it screws right on to the top like that and then I mentioned the airlock it's got this huge airlock.  So yeah, it's not going to clog easily and as three pieces got that top portion and then a stop or two it here that goes right in there.

Then it's even got a port on the bottom right there so what you could do if you want is to add the spigot to it so you can stick this on there and it makes it super easy to transfer your beer. You don't need to use an auto siphon or a racking cane, just hook up some tubing.

You can use I usually use half inch inner diameter tubing you can also use 3/8, but the half-inch goes a lot faster. So I like to use that and you can hook that up and drain this thing in a flash doesn't take long, at all just a few minutes. And then you have an option to you don't have to use the spigot if you prefer to transfer with a racking cane you can take this cap that comes with it. Stick that on here so you could do that instead.

Now another cool thing about that I really like this these threads are the same sizes on the top here and also on the port so you can take the cap and put it on top and then have your spigot on the bottom.

I like to do this when I clean and sanitize it.

So I'll put some hot PBW in here and obviously I don't want to get sprayed with the PBW, so I'll put the top on it and I'll shake it up like this and I won't get a drop on me, so that's really nice. Alright now a couple things that I don't like so much about it.

The plastic is really high quality stuff it's lightweight it's super strong its HDPE and you can really tell the difference when you put this next to a better bottle or another plastic carboy that's made usually out of the cheap plastic. You can just tell that this is better stuff but the nice thing about those carboys is that they're clear, and I really like to watch the beer fermenting.

It's one of my favorite things about home brewing and obviously that's not something you can do with this you can see in here a little bit. You can see sort of the shadow of the beer but you really can't watch what's going on like you can with a clear plastic carboy or even a glass carboy.  So that's a huge deal to you then then that might be reason not to get this but for me it wasn't a deal breaker at all now just another little nitpicky thing. About this the airlock and the stopper this thing gets stuck in here all the time and it's a real pain in the [butt] to get out.

So that's kind of a small inconvenience but it is a drawback of it but maybe that doesn't happen to everyone, maybe it's just mine. For some reason so those are really the only two things I don't like about this. And for that reason I have so little poor things to say about it that it's really my favorite fermenter. Now when I have all my fermenters open and I brew new beer, this is the one I put my beer into.

Now there are so some fermentors I haven't tried yet out there still looking forward to trying a conical someday and even that stainless steel bucket fermenter they have now, but right now, this is my number one. I really like it I like the plastic how strong it is I like the size I think the size is fantastic. Like, how easy it is to clean and how easy it is to transfer beer using the spigot at the bottom.

So this comes with a really high recommendation from me recommend if you make gallon batches anywhere in that range you go with a little bit larger size just to give yourself some breathing room. There's really no disadvantages to that it's kind of like getting a boil kettle you really never regret going too big with that but you will regret going too small.

So check out the spidel fermenter –  I love it! 

It's my favorite right now and I'm sure you'll love it too!

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