Beer line is giving plastic taste - is this a quick fix?

The kegging is going well. I have fixed all leaks in my system, put my Irish stout on the gas with the "set it and forget it" method, and got 10' of 3/16" beer line, and have balanced my system at about 42 degrees, at 12 psi. Lovely pours!

One problem - the first pint of the day has a distinctly "plasticy" taste that is not an off-flavor in the beer. If I dump the first pint, subsequent pours are fine. I guess this is from the beer sitting in the line overnight/for a few days.

Running through some quick calculations, I figured that the volume of beer in my line is (pi*r^2*length, or 3.14*(3/16")^2*120" = 3.314 cubic inches of beer. That works out to about 1.836 ounces of beer.

So, dumping the first 1/4 of a pint should fix it, I'm reckoning.

NONE of my beer lines lend a 'plasticy' or vinyl flavor or odor to the beer.

i think you need to replace your beer lines with the right kind of tubing...whatever you have seems to be teh wrong stuff.

not all clear tubing is equal...

The stuff I got was the 3/16" beer line from AHBS, and should be quality stuff.

Start reading from about post # 43 onwards in this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=37060

It went through half a dozen supposedly 'quality' beer lines before I found something that didn't leave a plastic taste.

Kal

Same things happened to me. Midwest Brew's lines have a plastic taste, though the lines I got from HomebrewStuff did not.