Splashing the keg...

So I've brewed about ten batches and have never had a bad batch. I recently started kegging and had something happen the other night that concerns me.

I've heard that if you splash the beer going into secondary or a bottling bucket, that you'll get the wet cardboard taste to the beer. Never tasted that, but it doesn't sound pretty. While I was filling my second keg the other night, my spigot kept getting clogged, stopping the flow and leaving air in the tube going to the keg. I would simply rock the bucket gently and flow would resume, but it would force all the air from the tube and send bubbles through the beer in the keg. This happened several times. Only after I replaced the spear (I use sankes) did it occur to me that I probably screwed the pooch.

I'm waiting for it to prime now, but I can't stand the suspense. Am I worrying over nothing here?

I'm thinking you'll be fine. Oxidation is something that occurs over time, a few air bubbles is not going to ruin it. I get the same thing when siphoning, if you lose siphon and try to restart it...bubbles in your beer. I've never had an issue.

i think they're more talking about being overly aggressive with the beer, like WAVES and splashing. the normal filling of stuff i doubt would ever show signs of the wet cardboard taste

Cool beans. I was trying to convince myself that there wouldn't be an issue. Being that I'm tapping these kegs for a party after exactly three weeks of priming, well, that's just not the time for my first bad batch.

Well, I finally tapped the keg. Perhaps it was the splashing, maybe it was the recipe, but either way I have my first bad batch. Pure aweful beer. My wife said she couldn't even describe how bad it was. It smells good though, just tastes bad.

I had the same experience while racking a Belgian wit where the racking cane kept clogging with orange peels. The beer turned out fine, but then again it was consumed relatively quickly. Likely before oxidation could set in.

I suspect that you have a different problem.

I did infuse some orange in this recipe. Instead of doing peel, I put two peeled oranges in some cheesecloth and steeped it in the boil. Never done that, but have seen it done with great results before.

If I do orange peels (or peeled oranges as you suggested), I will definitely employ a type of bag method to reduce the risk of clogging my racking cane and potentially aerating my beer.

Agreed. The cheesecloth bag I used obviously was not enough.

How long was it in your fermenter? How long did you have it kegged before trying it? I have had a few beers that were bloody awful. However, being kegged for a month or two they turned amazing. I bet aging would benefit your Belgian.

is it a wet cardboard taste (you would know what im talking about if it was)? or something else?

i would suspect infection or something, intead of oxygenation.
how long was your boil?

does it match any of these descriptions...?
http://www.bjcp.org/docs/Beer_faults.pdf