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Mayday99 · 10-07-2010, 01:05 AM

What is the conventional wisdom regarding taking an inch or so off your dip tubes vs leaving them alone?

I can definitely see in theory that you would get less sediment with a shorter dip tube.

Also, if you do dremel off a bit of dip tube, do you need to do anything to the freshly cut end?

buzzkill · 10-07-2010, 02:33 AM

I don't cut mine. but I have bent a few. you can always bend them back,but you can never un-cut them.

lumpher · 10-07-2010, 02:39 AM

don't cut. pull a pint, dump it, then enjoy. you'll need to dump the sludge anyway...

Scut_Monkey · 10-07-2010, 02:50 AM

I agree with both. If the pull a few pints method dosen't work for you simply bend it up 1/2-1" or so and see how that does for you. It's works just as well as cutting it and if you change your mind you can change it back. I have bent them over my knee and this works ok but the best method is to secure the diptube with a vise and put a screwdriver in the end that fits snug and bend it how you wish.

Mayday99 · 10-20-2010, 02:13 AM

Thanks for the suggestions. Bending by putting a screwdriver in the end of the tube and gently pulling it brought it up a couple of inches. Just what I was looking for and seemed so obvious once I did it.

I just feel like I am getting excessive sediment with the dip tube going all the way to the very bottom. Even when everything settles, pulling a pint has to kick some up when the tube is right in the center of all the sediment.

I did a double batch of SNPA clone, half of it I keg conditioned with the bent dip tube, will see if it makes a difference in a couple weeks. My force carbed half of the batch, with the tube going all the way to the bottom is still coming up murky after a 3 week primary, 1 week cold crash and about 4 days in the keg. I used US-05 for both.

**HenryHill** · 10-20-2010, 02:27 AM

Don't cut or bend the out tube-you WANT the first pint to be sludgy and to get the gook out of the keg. Even if the second isn't perfect, the other 4 3/4 gallons will be clear.

Scut_Monkey · 10-20-2010, 03:35 AM

Glad it worked well for you. Granted the best option is to pull a few pints and then transfer to a clean keg to completely remove sediment. Even better is to filter most beers but who has the time or money to do this all the time when homebrewing is already very labor intensive and often costly. Pulling the first few pints and dumping them works well for me but I'm not a big stickler of crystal clear beers. Others are and that's their preference.