Fermenting in corny keg question

I'm about to try this for the first time. I have two 5 gallon converted pin lock kegs. They are a little wider and shorter than the regular ball lock versions. I have not shortend the dip tube and wanted to try it without shortening the diptube. I like the idea of drawing off the yeast into a seperate container before racking it to a serving keg.

For those that have done this, do you cold crash before moving the beer so serving keg? If so, how long? I have crashed buckets where the yeast trub seem to have consistency of sour cream. Does it ever clog up the dip tube? I was hoping that I would leave the trub behind, get mostly yeast into a mason jar, then clear beer into the serving keg.

I would crash the beer before moving to another corny. I don’t think the dip tube will get clogged given enough pressure, although I think lower pressure would yield the most yeast. You can pull off trub throughout fermentation, similar to using a conical fermentor. I do not think you will be able to remove or leave all trub behind. You will probably need to wash the yeast.

Air lock solution, if you have not done this yet

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/corny-fermenter-airlock-74962/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/converting-corny-keg-into-fermenter-162688/#post1881075

Depending on which yeast you're using, yes, you can clog the tube.
Some yeasts I've been able to push out fine with a little CO2, others flocculate so hard that I've had to pull the tube and run the brush through it to clean it out.

In either case, you will not push out much yeast. The VAST majority sticks to the bottom of the keg. Which is fine for racking off of into a serving keg, but not great for easy harvesting of yeast.

I'm going to end up shortening a few diptubes on my fermentor kegs to avoid the whole cluster<bleep> that yeast + full-length diptube can be.

I use a variety but mostly 1056/001/s-05, Euro ale 011, Hef IV 380, occasionally a belgian abbey but 80% of my brews use those yeasts. I know the hef can generate a lot of yeast. I guess I'll try it and see. This would be a good time to work on minimizing the trub that goes from the kettle to the fermenter. I never had much of a problem with it when using buckets - perhaps 100 - 200 ML when I poured it in a beaker I use for yeast washing.

I'm sure it varies a bit on the exact corny keg used - it would probably pay off to know how much dead space I have below the dip tube for each of the 2 kegs I'm planning on using.

How did this work out for you? I have 2 ball lock kegs with a saison fermenting in them (used wyeast 3711). I'd like to put the diptube in, unmodified if possible, and transfer to a serving keg. I also want to collect the yeast.

I have tried this with for different kegs now and it over all has worked out well. I did have 1 of the four clog and I had to use a siphon to get the beer out. I'm trying a different route now with a plastic conical.