I’ve noticed a few people here use this. My questions are:
1. How much liquid does this device leave at the bottom of the keg? Is it always the same or is it variable depending on how the device settles? The reason I ask is I prefer to fill a keg with santizer and replace it with co2, then fill the keg with beer. My current method leaves nothing more than a trace of sanitizer and a keg full of co2.
2. Dry hopping in the keg with no bags and pellet hops - this is a potentially attractive feature, if it works. How reliable is this in practice with heavy dry hops (at least 5oz in a 5 gal keg)?
If you do nothing to intervene, it definitely leaves more santizer in the bottom of the keg - I’d ballpark 2 or 3 oz. In other words, more than I want. Luckily there’s an easy fix - when you’ve drained out all the sanitizer you can, simply invert the keg over your sink for a few seconds to let the sanitizer run down to the lid. Then just open the prv and let the pressure blow the sanitizer out. Easy enough.
As for keg hopping, I know you can throw the pellets in loose but I don’t. I toss the hops in a weighted 5 gallon paint strainer bag which keeps the hop particles near the bottom and of course the Clear Beer draws from the top - maximum distance from the draw point. Even a very slight amount of fine hop particulate in a pint gives beer a harsh hop bite. With this approach I get zero of that. Each his own.
All in all, really glad I switched over to these keg systems. Works as advertised.
Thanks, Jon. I didn’t think about inverting the keg and getting rid of residual sanitizer thru the blow hole. That solution would work for me. Thanks again.
If anyone dry hops large amounts of hops (more than 5oz of pellets) in a keg without a bag using this device, please let us know how it has been working for you.
I get good dry hop results, but would like to ditch the bags…and maybe use less dry hops.
Thinking more about this. It sure seems like inverting a keg that contains a movable metal object inside of it would be very likely to scuff the interior of the keg. Looking at the design more critically, the only thing that really needs to be metal is the filter which is isolated from keg contact.
I’m not that worried about infections after kegging, but would rather not scuff my kegs with every batch.
I’m not sure how much the stainless would get scratched or scuffed by the round float. Not to speak of as far as I can see. My kegs look fine on the inside FWIW.
They make a screen that fits over the system now. It works great and is very easy to clean. I will never go back to dip tubes. A few pros use these in their brites as well. Keg hop NEIPA w 4 5 oz on a regular basis and have had zero issues w particles or vegetal hop bite. Also works great if you add adjuncts. You can just add them anyway you like w or without a bag. I would pick one up to try. I know its an expense but I would be surprised if you didnt continue using it. Just my 2 cents.
Since the device floats, the screen shouldn’t have much or even any filtering to do until the last few pints. The hops drop to the bottom with a two week cold carbonation.
A 300 micron screen can definitely get clogged with pellets. I tried using a 300 micron screen with a regular dip tube and unbagged hops. It worked ok once and failed twice. Of course, it was always buried in hops, which is not an issue with this thing.
Am I correct that the size of the keg isn’t an issue? It seems to me from looking at the product info that the Clear Beer system would work with my kegs (all 3-gallon).
Any size keg should work similarly. Drawing from the top is a good idea. Have you seen their website, tho? Very hackable. Not sure if I want to be a fraud victim for the convenience of not using hop bags in a keg.