Considering dumping my first kegged batch

Brand new to kegging - just bought a kegerator 2 weeks ago.

Unfortunatly I wasnt informed about proper cleaning of my first keg until it was too late. I know know about PBW and oxyclean. All I originally did was rinse and hit it with starsan.

My beer taste and smells nasty now. I even bought another keg that I cleaned, santised and replaced o rings and moved brew from keg 1 to keg 2. unfortunatly it's still funky.

Being that I dont see this beer getting any better, I'm considering dumping it and filling with pbw - running pbw through my kegerator lines then sanatising the keg and running that through the lines as well. Basically, everything that I should have originally done but was in too big of a hurry to do the research.

When a beer is funky the drain is closer then you think. If its really bad I hate to say it but dump it. If its drinkable then try and do you best.

Have you tried dumping the first couple of onces when you first open the tap? Many beer lines give a really awful taste to beer that has spent any time in them. Worth a shot.

Hammy71 said:

Have you tried dumping the first couple of onces when you first open the tap? Many beer lines give a really awful taste to beer that has spent any time in them. Worth a shot.

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I have not tried that. Interesting thought though. I'll give it a shot tonight. Would the line make it smell like crap too? If it is the line that is the culprit would getting a new line help?

Did you buy the kegerator new, or were the lines old?

If the lines were used before you bought the kegerator, I would change the line and soak everything else in some PBW for a while to clean everything up.

I bought it used from a guy that won it. He never used it as a kegerator but as a mini fridge. So teh lines are new.....but had been sitting around unused for a coupel years.

kinda depends on which off tastes your getting as to which culprit might be involved. When I first setup mine, I cleaned the kegs super well, but then just connected the beer lines and let 'er rip. I got really nasty plasticky tastes. Didn't realize that you needed to throughly clean the new beer lines first. Several rounds of super hot cleaner run through them, followed by super hot water to rinse, and everything was much better!

I still have the bad habit of rushing green beers to tap, and often times the bad flavoring I get is just from the beer not being in its prime yet.

Since you need to clean everything anyway, do that and then try the beer again. If it is still weird, then you'll have to dump it. Some of the flavors imparted by dirty kegs will never get better.

VAShooter said:

I have not tried that. Interesting thought though. I'll give it a shot tonight. Would the line make it smell like crap too? If it is the line that is the culprit would getting a new line help?

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Even some brands on hose impart a nasty taste/odor. To me anyway. Friends say I'm crazy. Maybe......

Hammy71 said:

Have you tried dumping the first couple of onces when you first open the tap? Many beer lines give a really awful taste to beer that has spent any time in them. Worth a shot.

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I tried this tonight and what a difference! However, I still get a trace of it but nothing like I had. The small amount in the line rendered an entire pint undrinkable....unreal! Now it's atleast tolerable...actually pretty good.

Just to confirm the cleaning process:
1. Run PBW with hot water through it
2. Rinse with hot water
3. Run starsan through the lines
4. Retap the keg

Might be worth replacing the lines with new ones, there was a thread on here a while back that someone had test all the differnt types of tube used for beerlines. Some of them were aweful at tainting the beer with a off flavour (and from memory it was exactly like you are explaining). If the guy won this kegorator I wouldn't be suprised if they used the cheapest line possible to build it. Beer line tube is to expensive and it might be the difference between being able to drink you beer and being able to enjoy you beer

Check your tap. I had a moldy cobra tap I didn't know about and I got a horrible off flavor from it. There was a sizable green chunk inside the tap body.

VAShooter said:

I tried this tonight and what a difference! However, I still get a trace of it but nothing like I had. The small amount in the line rendered an entire pint undrinkable....unreal! Now it's atleast tolerable...actually pretty good.

Just to confirm the cleaning process:
1. Run PBW with hot water through it
2. Rinse with hot water
3. Run starsan through the lines
4. Retap the keg

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5. Replace lines
6. Maybe waste an ounce or so for the rest of your beer drinking life. But, it's worth it, to me anyway.

Bumping this thread. I have replaced teh beer line , replaced all O rings in kegs, ran PBW and Starsan through lines and kegs...the off flavor tatse has greatly reduced but my brew smells bad. Luckily it does not taste like it smells but I want to be able to stick my nose in the bottle to pull the hop aroma. I cant really describe the smell other than bad.
For what it's worth, I'm serving at 8psi and getting a nice 1.5 finger head on my pours.