I made a kickass chinook and centennial IPA. I dry hopped in the primary. Like a dummy I transferred it to the keg without using some kind of straining technique (which I usually do). Most of the way through the transfer I got clear beer but at the end while adjusting the auto siphon it fell to the bottom and sucked up a whole bunch of yeast and a lot of hop trub.
I figured I’d end up wasting a couple pints of beer getting that stuff out after carbonation, but after getting some pretty trubalicious beer out, nothing will come out… Nothing. I even jacked the pressure up to 35 or 40 for a min thinking I might be able to blow it out but to no avail. I’m sure the bev-out dip tube is jacked.
My question is this… what do I do now? I have multiple empty kegs but can I transfer/rack already carbonated beer into another keg or is this a no-no? I’d definitely put a sanitized gallon paint strainer on the end of the auto siphon.
Or will trying to save this 4 1/2 gallons of beer turn into a foamy nightmare? Lesson learned, but could use some advice stat!
or try hooking co2 to the line out and blow out the bottom of the pick up tube which is likely clogged as well. Then if you can put a filter of sorts on the pick up tube, you could transfer to another keg using co2 instead of a siphon. I do this all the time. Purge air out of the receiving keg, hook a line to both “out” posts and put co2 on the full keg. Keep pressure slow and steady and pull the release valve periodically on the receiving keg.
The trick is going to be getting a filter on the out tube in a keg that has beer in it. Messy.
Try taking the poppet out of the out post. Remove the “pin” from the disconnect also. Put the disconnect on the keg attached to a picnic tap. Attach the picnic tap to a racking cane that has a filter on the out end. Then pressurize the keg and transfer it to a clean keg.
Not sure if this will work. Give it a try on one of your empty kegs.
I pulled the post off. Of course the poppet valve inside/whole inside of the post was filled with hop debris. Then I pulled the dip tube and it too had probably an inch of hop crud in it. The keg was only 2/3 full so after cleaning and sanitizing the tube and post, as I put the tube into the keg, I zip tied a sanitized 1 gallon paint strainer to the end of it, and then pushed the tube all the way back down.
After putting everything back together, I hooked it back up and wala! NOTHING AGAIN ha… So, I pulled the post again to inspect the valve, and saw nothing. Then I figured it may be that my dip tube is sooo close to the bottom of the keg, that now the screen/filter on the end was jacking things up so I pulled the tube up again and removed the strainer. After reinstalling the tube and post, beer flowed fine, but after a couple of glasses it was just full of hop trub still so I said F it and racked it, filtering it as I racked it, into a new keg. It lost a bit of it’s carbonation, but it’ll be fine in a day or two.
Again, lesson learned. I won’t be racking to keg anymore without using some sort of strainer. I’ve done it before with no ill effects but after all the drama tonight trying to save that beer, never again.
When I’ve got a beer that I know is going to have a lot of debris, I use a diptube that I’ve cut the bottom inch off of. Then I don’t have to worry about this. Once I get to the bottom of the keg, if I really want to try to get that last pint, I’ll put a full-length diptube in and live with a cloudy pint.
