Does anyone ever

move their beer from one corny keg to another while conditioning?

Fill the empty keg with co2 to purge all or most air out of it, purge the line and then hook up out to out and push the brew in to the empty keg with your co2?

It's always good to use CO2 to purge before filling. It is a good technique but have not used it yet.

My lhbs thinks it's no good. Will remove too much flavour and will never get rid of all sediment/proteins.

ThePonchoKid said:

move their beer from one corny keg to another while conditioning?

Fill the empty keg with co2 to purge all or most air out of it, purge the line and then hook up out to out and push the brew in to the empty keg with your co2?

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I may be missing the point but what are you looking to accomplish by doing this? Why not just let it condition in the original keg? I hope I'm not sounding snarky, I'm just trying to understand the purpose.

Sorry just re-read your second post now, to remove sediment. Ya, I've done that when blending beers or transferring to a 3 gallon keg and your lhbs store saying it removes too much flavor is nonsense.

I just do a better job of transferring, use highly flocculant yeast strains, and give them the time needed to settle in primary to get clean initial transfers to serving kegs. So, no, I've never needed to transfer from one serving keg to another to get it off the trub. I also have very little sediment in the bottom of a kicked keg (the yeast that fell out of suspension while it was in the brew fridge).

scoundrel said:

Sorry just re-read your second post now, to remove sediment. Ya, I've done that when blending beers or transferring to a 3 gallon keg and your lhbs store saying it removes too much flavor is nonsense.

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Agreed.

In fact I've made a lager with a few overpowering flavours, and I suspect that this transfer method will better put them in their place after a month or two

I do. On 1 keg I cut about 1.75 inches off of the out dip tube. I'll condition the beer about 10 days at room temperature (sometimes I'm also dry-hopping) and then cold crash for 3-4 days. Then I transfer to a serving keg. Beer ends up crystal clear. I used to use gelatin but not any more. I do lose about 20oz per keg but I no longer have to dump any first pours. So I guess that means I do a secondary or use a bright tank, whatever. I despise haze and sediment of any form.

I have a freezer for conditioning and a freezer for serving, I don't want to disturb the yeast so I transfer to a fresh keg before serving. I just tap off until it runs clear and transfer to a fresh keg, when it's full I purge the head space and load it into my keggerator.