Shorter Liquid Dip Tubes

I’ve read that some guys saw about an inch off their liquid dip tube to reduce the amount of yeast that gets dispensed. Is this worth doing? In theory after enough settling time, most of the yeast gets dispensed on the first pour.

I’m really keen to reduce the amount of yeast that I consume, and don’t want to start filtering unless I have to.

It works, but you lose a little beer. I cut one diptube 1" short so I could clamp a stainless braid on the end and dryhop with whole hops - works great, but I leave about a quart of beer behind.

Thanks Shade. Maybe instead of shortening all of my diptubes:

  1. Shorten the dip tube on one keg
  2. Rack to the above keg and purge the air
  3. Cold crash with a fining agent until clear
  4. Push the clear beer to a new keg
  5. Carbonate

I realize I could cold crash my carboy, but kegs are easier to fit in my freezer and I don’t have to worry about elevating a keg to move the beer off the yeast.

I can cope with a bit of beer loss and waiting a few extra days to consume.

The only real downside I think think of is that I would have to clean/sanitize two kegs per batch. Actually, that could get old fast. I may have just talked myself out of this plan.

Allowing it to clear in the keg with the short diptube and then transferring sounds like an easy way to get worry-free clear beer.

How are you sanitizing your kegs? I just put a quart of StarSan in, pressurize the lid, then shake a few times and leave it upside down for 30 seconds, then shake a few times, and turn it right-side up, pop on either a party tap or my transfer line and drain the StarSan back to the bucket through the hose. Takes maybe five minutes tops with almost no actual work. And doing two just adds a tiny increment to the total time.

I agree. Sanitizing really is that easy.

It’s the cleaning part that I’m not thrilled about. I have yet to kick a keg and clean it, so maybe I’m worrying over nothing. So far, I’ve only cleaned “new” used kegs. I’ve been disassembling, soaking in PBW and rinsing. Maybe a freshly kicked keg doesn’t need the same TLC as a recently acquired used keg.

For empty kegs, I turn them over and spray out any sediment with a hose, then add a tablespoon of PBW and fill to the top with water. While it fills, I pull the out poppet and run a wire brush through the diptube, then pull the diptube out and drop into the keg so it can get a good soak. I’ll let a keg sit that way for a couple or three days, then rinse it out and allow to air dry before sanitizing.