I’ve keg hopped my last several IPAs to good effect. This latest IPA I keg hopped with 2oz of citra and 2 oz of willamette. It was weird because when I went to pull a pint I could only get an ounce or two to come out before it stopped. I had though that maybe one of the hop bags got pinned under the pick up tube and was blocking it. But then I noticed that in the little beer that did come out there was a lot of hop pellet residue.
The hop bag for the willamette hops must have slipped open. I vented the keg and removed the liquid post and dip tube. The post was packed full of hops and the dip tube was nearly blocked.
I’m looking for suggestions with what to do next. I was thinking of removing the lid and siphoning the beer into a new keg. I’m still concerned that when I siphon it that I will get pellets transferred into the new keg. I’ve tried attaching hop bags over the end of the siphon but with a fully carbed beer the co2 would come out of solution when it hits the hop bag and the siphon would stop.
Pull out the dip tube again and clean it out, re-sanitize and try again. Repeat until it’s clear.
You could try transferring the beer but I’d try this first. Last time this happened to me I think it took four or five iterations to get things flowing smoothly again.
Well…this sort of worked. After 6 or 7 iterations I got the keg to flow good. Put it back in the kegerator…which swirled up more mess and it plugged again. I repeated the cleaning of the dip tube and post a few more times. Including moving the keg around to get stuff swirled up. Got it going good again, put the keg back in the kegerator. And it plugged again.
I’m taking a break to watch football and drink beer. I’ll try it again later.
Denny - wouldnt the sure screen cause CO2 to come out of solution as the liquid pass through it?
I had this problem a couple batches ago. ended up attaching the bottom of a metal tea ball to the end of the dip tube with a piece of grain bag and a rubber band. the tea ball held the bag away from the end of the tube enough that it didn’t just clog up immedietly. worked fairly well.
+1…the SureScreen is a beautiful thing.
I do think it works better with whole hops rather than pellets, but it is indispensable…I have them installed on all of my kegs.
I made my first mash tun out of a 3 gal. round cooler and a SureScreen a la Ken Schwartz’s directions. Only took me 2 batches to move to a bigger cooler and a hose braid and move the SureScreen to a keg.
I cleaned out the post and the dip tube really good and then let the keg settle for a few days. The flow out of the tap isn’t what it should be, but its pretty good.
in the keg, I only use leaf hops, never pellets. And I either go into a nylon bag, or let the swim free, with a sure screen. I’ve used a muslin bag, and i’ve used pellets, but I think the whole idea is to get the oils into your beer while keeping out vegative matter. Sometimes I’ll use both a nylon bag and a sure screen.
I have never had the need to suspend the bag in anyway so it didn’t reach the bottom. Hops float ya know! I’ve never had a clog nor a situation where the dry hops went grassy after too much time.
In the absence of a surescreen or a tea ball, a copper scrubby rubberbanded to the dip tube works well as a screen for whole hops. Not sure if this would solve your pellet hop escape problem.