Kegging - funny taste

I just started kegging. In fact this is my first keg that I'm pulling from. Here's the issue - when I haven't had a pull in a while (more than 30 minutes), and pour a glass - the first glass tastes really bad, like it's picking up flavors from the tap or line or something. If I pour another right after purging the lines with the first glass, it tastes great, like its supposed to. The off flavor is kind of fruity, but not in a good way.

What could be causing the off flavor? Getting warm from sitting in the tubing in the tower? Maybe picking up flavors from the tube? I've been pulling from the keg for a few days now and the flavor hasn't diminished at all, which I'd expect if it were leaching from the liquid tubing.

Any ideas?

What kind of tubing are you using? Did you clean everything before you started flowing beer through it?

I had the same problem on some one of my taps, it was the plastic taste from line. All of my other lines were from KegConnection , this one was from some other reputable place. I followed there instructions on cleaning the line, I finally just replaced it. They refused to see a problem with there line. They refunded my money, but I'm sure they kept selling it. I've had line from morebeer.com kegconnection, with no issues.

All mine came from Austin Homebrew Supply. 2 years now, funny taste free.

I've bought so many lines, I can't remember who it's from. It's either morebeer or northern brewer. It is a perlick brand line, so it's meant for this kind of use. I cleaned the line before using with PBW. I don't get the flavor unless the beer has been sitting in the line for more than 30 minutes. I've read some threads about people having this plasticy, fruity taste from their line when its new, and it eventually goes away.

Hopefull it is just off flavor from the line that will eventually fade.

Mine never went away, and it stunk up the Keezer. Everytime I would open the lid on the keezer I could smell the plastic line. I bought mine in Austin, I'd rather not say from who, but I've had great results with Bevlex.

When I don't draw a beer for few days, the beer in the line gets stale. I usually pull a half pint or so, dump it, and continue imbibing.

I had the same problem. I was using 3/16" Bevflex PVC tubing and all my beers had that fruity/plastic taste. As per the recommendations from another thread on this forum I switched to polyethylene lines.

I now use 25' of 1/4" LLDPE (linear low density polyethylene) as my beer line. It is more rigid than PVC but doesn't have all the endocrine disrupting plasticizers present in PVC (the chemicals that cause the plastic smell/taste). It can be found at http://www.mcmaster.com

I've used this as my beer line for about 4-5 months now and I no longer have a problem with plastic off-taste in my beer.

I have used Bevlex and Only bevlex.. and have had Great results with no Complaints at all!!

My new lines are Bev-Seal. They have a PET plastic liner, which is the same plastic as the better bottles, no problems with plastic taste and the beer doesn't oxidize in the lines either.

I have had this trouble. Some people have had luck running some hot water through the lines helping flush out some of the taste. We never did have luck with that and all we did was get hot smelly water. Now we use micro-matic beer line that we got from the local distributer. Good luck with this!

Update on this thread - I changed my liquid line to a 3/16" regular vinyl Perlick brand line from NB and there are no longer any remnants of bad flavors in the beer. Problem solved.