1 year old buckets with spiggot, 3 consecutive bad brews

[noremorse1]

Some of you may or may not have read my keg funk thread. Anyways, I have been having some issues with my beer since I started kegging. It has this funkiness to it and, while they all kinda start tasting unique, they gradually mature toward a similar flavor.

After a botched porter and scottish 80 I went all Nazi on my kegging setup, replaced the tubes, soaked the **** out of it in PBW for 24 hours, then sanitized with Star San. I kegged up a 7.5% all centennial IPA about 4 days ago. It sat in the primary for a week, secondary for 2 weeks, and has been in the keg on 12 psi for 4 days.

I know it is early... but it doesn't taste like I would expect. I cannot smell any hop aroma and it had 5 ounces of centennial in the boil and 1 ounce dry hop. It is green yes... but I am thinking its got a funk to it too.

The one mistake I may have made is my choice of fermenting vessels. I got rid of my glass carboys to move to Better Bottles. Well, I took my time ordering the better bottles and decided to ferment a few batches in these old 7 gallon buckets with spigots I had sitting in my storage shed. I cleaned them with a 30 minute PBW soak and a 30 minute star san soak. I am concerned they may be the problem.

Anyone? I am going to re-order some glass carboys after I have now lost faith in plastic all-together... I have a 6 gallon Better Bottle but, I used it as the secondary on this last batch and am concerned any infection may have leached over.

Anyone have any suggestions. Outside of the **** plastic fermenters, I took every precaution you can imagine. A few months ago I was making really, really good beers too.

 

[mew]

Outside of the **** plastic fermenters, I took every precaution you can imagine.

Well, there you go. Don't use those fermenters anymore.

 

[david_42]

I would have dismantled the spigots and given them a good cleaning. That said, I've used the same buckets for 8 years now and haven't had a bad batch in 6.

I can't imagine anything in a bucket that could negate 6 ounces of centennial.

 

[MoRoToRiUm]

+1 on dismantling the spigot and doing a thorough cleansing. Are the inside of the buckets scratched at all? The PBW and Starsan should have killed everything, but if you had any wild gnomes in your brew they may have found a crevice to hide run rampant.

 

[springer]

+1 on dismantling the spigot. Also I would nuke everything in a bleach solution or just toss them.

Don't give up on the plastic BB I bought one after having used glass and a SS conical. Now I have 4 BBs and don't use the glass or the conical they are just sitting to the side of the brew room.

 

[EdWort]

My buckets are going on 3 years with no issues yet. I'd toss them without a second thought if they gave me a bad brew.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I personally think the spigots are a pointless weak link. The fewer the parts I have to think about the better.

 

[EdWort]

I personally think the spigots are a pointless weak link. The fewer the parts I have to think about the better.

Possibly, but I use them on my 3 buckets without any issues. I love not having to siphon.

 

[noremorse1]

I would have dismantled the spigots and given them a good cleaning. That said, I've used the same buckets for 8 years now and haven't had a bad batch in 6.

I can't imagine anything in a bucket that could negate 6 ounces of centennial.

I did dismantle them and blast them.

As for the centennial... maybe the beer is just really young and the hops are being masked or something.