Here’s my thought process. Seems like the first couple pours are wasted unless you are a yeast lover. Then I saw that new style keg that has a concave bottom to keep yeast away from the center. How about trimming the bottom inch or so off the dip tube? Has anyone tried that? Thoughts?
sure, folks do that a lot. you still lose the beer but as you say, it’s a loss anyway. However, I find if you let it settle for a couple days in the fridge before pulling that first pint you only lose maybe half a pint while trimming the dip tube will likely leave behind at least a full pint. but still, not much to worry about.
I’m going to try taking a half inch off the dip tube on the next batch I keg
I started cold crashing 3-4 days before filling the keg and that cut the losses down to about 1 pint. Pints 2-3 aren’t crystal clear but they are not mud either.
Of course I never bottle before 2 weeks in fermenter and usually wait 3 weeks. I also drink sparingly until the beer has been in keg for 3 weeks (usually I try a pint at the 1 week and 2 week marks).
+1 . Except for maybe hefeweizen and wit, I usually cold crash @ 3 weeks for 2 days then let sit @ 40F (normal strength beers) and keg at a month. By the time you keg you’ve left a lot of that out of the keg in the first place.
My last two to keg I racked with a siphon rather than a drain spigot. That has helped. The current fermenting batches were all brewed on the same day. They are going to get four days at 32° before racking to a bottling bucket. That will help. I’ll eventually find my method to crystal clarity all the time.
The finished product, after those yeasty pours, is pretty fine IIDSSMY. I am working on making more, or all of it fine.
Sounds like a plan !
For me crystal clear clarity seriously enhances the enjoyment. I know it’s silly but I like clear beer. I also make a lot of lighter beers and I think getting all the yeast out is more important because there are not as many complex flavors to hide the yeast flavor.
The first pint is a vitamin supplement. The second and third pints are rewards for taking my vitamins.
I cut a gas dip tube once because it wouldn’t fit in my stoopid keg. That’s a hard metal - used an entire dremel cutting disc to get through that little thing.
Tubing cutter will work fine. Might want to try a fresh blade.
Man, I bet that Dremel motor got smokin’ hot too ! Like a battle of wills. 
You must have been doing something wrong! I use a dremel cut-off wheel to shorten all my dip tubes. It’s maybe a 30 second operation.
I have vacillated on the need to cut dip tubes, but have finally realized that I don’t really lose any beer with a cut tube. I’m just leaving more yeast at the bottom of the keg. By only cutting a half inch off, the loss is minor and the potential for pulling yeast up with a pour is reduced.
On another note, one of my clubmates (ajk on this list) has been experimenting with epoxy mixing tube inserts in his kegs to get more headloss in the serving line. This allows better pours while having higher carbonation pressure. He strips the casings off of the mixing tubes and inserts the squiggly inerds into the keg’s dip tube. He says he can get up to 3 inserts into the dip tube and it does work.
You could just get a filter and forget about it. Then you can transport/move kegs and not stir up the yeast as well.
That’s crossed my mind too. I’ll see how these new techniques help first.