Secondary in a Corny, serve or rack to new keg

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promontory

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I have a pale ale (extract) fermented, and moved to a corny for dry hopping. I keep breaking Carboy's so I figured I would start doing my secondary/aging in a corney. I bleed off the extra co2 daily.

Anyway the question is should I carb it and then serve it. I would expect the first pull to be all crap, or should I rack it to another keg leaving the last little bit to limit the sediment.

I used about 1 oz of hop pellets for dry hopping. I just want to make sure if I carb it from here, will the first pull really be able to clear it out? I don't want to get a bunch of garbage in the beer.....

thanks so much for all the help.
 
BUMP... Sorry to bump but I want to do this tonight after work and I want to make sure I don't gunk up my Cornies... any other thoughts?
 
You may want to take off the out post, remove the dip tube, and bend it a bit so you wont suck up all the scum on the bottom of the keg. I did this last night and it worked great on a dry hopped AAA. (also, make sure you bleed the pressure before removing the liquid post!)
 
BRewdog, thanks for the idea. I'd like to limit the air exposure on this one if possible.

Would it be possible to connect the keg the co2, pressurize it, run it for a 30 seconds to get the crap out of the bottom then let it sit for 24 hours with pressure to carb it, or will I be shooting myself on the foot with the hops gunk getting stuck in the line???

The reason for my thinking of leaving it in, is that I have no way to know how far to siphon down to. I may siphon beer out then get to the bottom and get the gunk anyway. I guess if I see crap in my siphon line then I know to stop...

Just trying to make the best call here that limits the beers oxygenation.
 
If it were me (and it's not), I'd just rack into a new keg. So long as you are careful with your tubing and making sure you purge immediately after racking, I'd be confident that it will not noticeably affect it. Others may disagree, though. If you transfer out of the diptube, you'll always risk picking up hop material.
 
I'd be worried about the hop material clogging up the dip tube.

+1 to racking out of your secondary corney to your serving corney using your siphon.
 
So I went ahead, purged both serving keg and secondary with co2, then used my racking siphon to get it racked. The thing I don't like about it is that I wasn't sure how far down I should go.

I will bag to dry hop in the future. Is it ok to attach the bag to a string in order to be able to pull it out? A friend also said that he force racks from corny to corny. He has a jumper built using two black quick disconnects hi pulls one end off, and co2s the secondary keg, pushing beer out. He said he lets it go for a couple seconds to clear out the hop gunk then reconnects the quick disconnect, and runs the beer in.

Overall the whole thing seems a little wonky but I am working on it.Racked 2 beers, and I think I did ok.
 
So I went ahead, purged both serving keg and secondary with co2, then used my racking siphon to get it racked. The thing I don't like about it is that I wasn't sure how far down I should go.

I will bag to dry hop in the future. Is it ok to attach the bag to a string in order to be able to pull it out? A friend also said that he force racks from corny to corny. He has a jumper built using two black quick disconnects hi pulls one end off, and co2s the secondary keg, pushing beer out. He said he lets it go for a couple seconds to clear out the hop gunk then reconnects the quick disconnect, and runs the beer in.

Overall the whole thing seems a little wonky but I am working on it.Racked 2 beers, and I think I did ok.

In the corny, you can use bags or teaball strainers or anything you want. I never remove mine until the keg is gone so I don't use any ties to remove the dryhops, but you could use some sanitized fishing line or plastic zipties.

I jump my kegs all the time, and just posted a "how to" last night, in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/driving-full-kegs-problems-210282/#post2457267 I don't do it for dryhopping, but to have a sediment-free keg for traveling.
 
Yooper that makes alot of sense, and I read the other post as well. My only question is if all your doing is transfering, then wouldn't the sediment pass through as well? Or do you pull a little out of the first keg to get that sediment out then go ahead and transfer?

thanks
 
I have two kegs set up as brite tanks. I cut 3/4 to an inch off the bottom of the diptube of the brite tanks. I will rack from the carboy to the brite tank after fermentation is over. For beers that I don't dry hop, I chill the beer down then add gelatin and let it sit cold for 4-7 days and use the jumper method to go to a clean keg. It is amazing how much better a beer tastes when it is clear. For hoppy beers, I usually dry hop in the primary, cold crash the carboy to get everything to drop out then rack to the brite tanks. If you dry hop in the keg, I would use the paint strainer bags from the hardware store and add a couple of stainless nuts or bolts to help it sink. You can rack to another keg without worrying about the hops clogging up the poppets.
 
Thanks for the comments Seyahmit. So you have a couple of cornies setup as Brite tanks. you don't serve from them, you just use them to age???

thanks
 
I have 8 kegs total. I mostly use the two with the dip tubes cut for clarification, but serve out them in a pinch.
 
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