Maybe I am answering my own question here, but am I going nuts or can changing the size of my beer line actually affect the taste of beer?
A little background. I made a Pliny the Elder clone two months ago. Brew process and fermentation went fine, dry hopped, kegged, waited 10 days and finally tried it. The beer had a strange odor that I attributed to something funky going on either with the dry hopping process or something else with the yeast. I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit for another two weeks. Re-tapped it with new clean lines. Same thing – no improvement. At the time I had been using ¼” ID vinyl line because my LHBS didn’t carry anything else at the time. The pours were slightly heavy on the foam, but not horrible, and a little lighter on carbonation than I like, but still passable. I knew things were out of balance, but was making due because other brews I made were turning out pretty good with this system.
Anyway, I invested too much in this Pliny to let it go to waste and dump it and on a whim I finally changed over to 3/16” line and, I kid you not, literally overnight the beer now pours and tastes perfect. Exactly what I was hoping for. Can the line adjustment have possibly been the magic bullet that made all well with this brew?
A little background. I made a Pliny the Elder clone two months ago. Brew process and fermentation went fine, dry hopped, kegged, waited 10 days and finally tried it. The beer had a strange odor that I attributed to something funky going on either with the dry hopping process or something else with the yeast. I pulled it out of the fridge and let it sit for another two weeks. Re-tapped it with new clean lines. Same thing – no improvement. At the time I had been using ¼” ID vinyl line because my LHBS didn’t carry anything else at the time. The pours were slightly heavy on the foam, but not horrible, and a little lighter on carbonation than I like, but still passable. I knew things were out of balance, but was making due because other brews I made were turning out pretty good with this system.
Anyway, I invested too much in this Pliny to let it go to waste and dump it and on a whim I finally changed over to 3/16” line and, I kid you not, literally overnight the beer now pours and tastes perfect. Exactly what I was hoping for. Can the line adjustment have possibly been the magic bullet that made all well with this brew?