help diagnosing a problem

I'm going to try to make this question as short as possible, but there are a lot of factors. I brewed a batch on Feb. 13. It was an English style ale with willamette, east kent, and styrian goldings and I used S-04 (for the first time). I thermometer on the fermentor read about 66-68 the whole time. Then I kegged it, in a keg that I was using for the 1st time--just came in the mail and I rinsed it and sanitized it before use. Ok, so now the beer is carbonated, but just not tasting as I would expect. How can I figure out if the taste is from:

1. estery flavor from the s-04, a yeast I have never used so don;t have a reference for
2. a sanitation/infection issue with the new keg--would there be a visible sign of this in the keg? also it tasted great when sampled from the fermentor at transfer
3. maybe just needs more time, it has been in the keg since march 5.

Thanks for the help.

Need more info. OG, FG, recipe? What do you taste? What taste did you expect?

did you take apart the keg? I wasn't going to do that for my first keg and thought the wash and rinse would be good enough. BUT, after a couple of beers, youtube, and google, I took it apart to find a bunch of crap in the feed tube and such. in fact, I just got another keg yesterday so I am taking it to work where I can get water everywhere and take my time. kind of not looking forward to it but I have to get it done if I want to brew sat and keg sunday.

-More time isn't the issue, at least not more time in the keg at serving temp.

-I didn't tear my kegs down before use and have had no issue with infection, doesn't mean you couldn't though. But it seems pretty unlikely.

-Have you ever made this beer before? I'm guessing you just aren't crazy about the taste of the batch. I would take a sample to your LHBS and see if they have someone experienced who could taste it and see if they can identify what you are preceiving as an off flavor.

sorry for the slow response. i have 3 kegs and did not take the others apart and had no issues, not that it couldn;t have happened with this 3rd one. I didn;t think that infection would be very likely after fermentation and at keezer temperature. Would there be any visible sign or other sign that would help me figure out if it were the keg vs. just a bad taste? The taste is not horrible, and is hard to describe.

also, for what it's worth the og was about 1044 and the hop schedule was
1 oz: willamette 60"
1 oz: east kent 30"
1 oz: styrian goldings 5 min"
then s-04 yeast

borealis said:

sorry for the slow response. i have 3 kegs and did not take the others apart and had no issues, not that it couldn;t have happened with this 3rd one. I didn;t think that infection would be very likely after fermentation and at keezer temperature. Would there be any visible sign or other sign that would help me figure out if it were the keg vs. just a bad taste? The taste is not horrible, and is hard to describe.

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Like i said, see if you can get someone else to taste it who is experienced enough to describe off flavors (someone qualified as a beer taster/judge). My LHBS has folks like this. Of course the only person that really matters is you since you're the one who will be drinking it, but if you want to try to pin down the flavor to avoid it in the future take it to a pro.

Thanks, I'm also concerned about the keg at issue too though, just so I don't run the risk of ruining another batch. I can live with a less than stellar beer every now and then, I just don;t want to be creating my own problem if it is keg related.

Well, some people here have said that they don't prefer s-04, I have used it a lot and like it for it's flavor, convenience and yeast count. I have been using WY1968 and WY1275 lately, each of the three definitely make different bitters.

For what it's worth, I think it is just the flavor of the beer and the character of the yeast that was throwing me off. I don't believe it is an infection because the flavor is actually improving with time rather than getting worse. Thanks for the help though.

If the keg was used it likely still has soda residue in it. You have to clean the hell of 'new' used corny kegs.