Upped the PSI but New Off-Flavor

The thread title kind of sums it all up. I had three kegs on tap carbonating while I was away from home for the holidays at 12 psi at 38 degrees. I use ten feet of line so I don't have any problems with carbonation.

I turned the PSI way down yesterday afternoon to bottle from the kegs for an upcoming competition. I noticed that my amber (which is newest to the keg rotation) was a bit flat, so I turned the PSI up to 14 psi for all three kegs thinking that I could up the carbonation a bit and turn it down tomorrow if needed.

I wanted an IPA last night so I went to pull a draft of it from the kegerator and noticed that there was zero hop aroma. Three hours before it had been overwhelming citrusy. The hop taste and flavor was gone and the beer itself tasted sour. All three kegs have the same off-flavor.

The only thing I changed was the CO2 PSI a bit from 12 to 14 psi....I suspected that's the cause of the off-flavor so I lowered the PSI down to 11 and vented all three kegs several times last night. I have an upcoming New Years Eve party and my wife is nervous that the beer is ruined. I suspect that it should be fine in a day or so but honestly have not run into this before. Any suggestions on how to improve this?

Most likely carbonic bite it should dissipate in a couple of days.

That's really strange. I've never heard of CO2 pressure causing an off flavor in a beer. The usual suspects for sour flavors are bacterial infections from something like lactobacillus or acetobacillus (acetic acid). These usually come down to some sort of an error in sanitation somewhere in your brewing process.

When I first started out brewing, I used to be religious about my sanitizing but like an idiot, I would top off any evaporation loss with tap water. Yep, right out of the tap. No pre-boil, no treatment, just straight out of the sink.

DOH!

The rapid loss of hops aroma and flavor might be an interesting clue. Is this a new tank fill of CO2? Is it possible the place where you had it filled used something other than CO2 to fill the tank? Oxygen maybe?

I hope somebody else has run into this issue and can help you out.

It is odd. I don't believe it is a contamination issue as the samples I bottled yesterday afternoon tasted great, had great hop aroma, and great flavor. A few hours later after upping the PSI the hop aroma is gone and all three had that sour taste.

I pulled a sample of the IPA just a few minutes ago and it has improved slightly but not even close to where it was before the change in PSI. I vented the kegs again...I'm getting a bit nervous myself as I really do want my friends and guests to enjoy my draft beer...

The only solution that I can think of is to continue to vent the kegs throughout the day to alleviate any excess CO2. I'm 99% certain that the tank contains CO2 as the LHBS does not refill oxygen tanks.

aiptasia said:

That's really strange. I've never heard of CO2 pressure causing an off flavor in a beer. The usual suspects for sour flavors are bacterial infections from something like lactobacillus or acetobacillus (acetic acid). These usually come down to some sort of an error in sanitation somewhere in your brewing process.

When I first started out brewing, I used to be religious about my sanitizing but like an idiot, I would top off any evaporation loss with tap water. Yep, right out of the tap. No pre-boil, no treatment, just straight out of the sink.

DOH!

The rapid loss of hops aroma and flavor might be an interesting clue. Is this a new tank fill of CO2? Is it possible the place where you had it filled used something other than CO2 to fill the tank? Oxygen maybe?

I hope somebody else has run into this issue and can help you out.

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Thanks, but I have already tried that.

I have had similar experiences with almost exact same setup. 10-12 PSI and all is well. 14 PSI and my beer still had OK aroma but I lost the hops flavor. Flavor went to lemon from a more orange citrus flavor. I vented and left the beer at 10 PSI for a week. In my case the beer also seemed over carbed. It had more bubbles coming out of suspension than normal, more head when poured, and came out of the tap very fast. I too have 10' lines so even when over carbed the beer poured fine, more head, but manageable head just the same.