Yeah I doubt the under sink filter is getting all the chloramine.
Who said anything about an under the sink filter?
after reading through all this, and if you were me, the first thing i would change would be my yeast. building up from tiny amounts does introduce a reasonable possibility of contamination. you could easily eliminate this possibility by brewing a basic pale with a rehydrated sachet of s-05.
the next thing would be replacing all plastic components. i can think of a couple times in the past where people have made similar posts and the issue was resolved with a new fermentation bucket.
You said you use a filter for chlorine in post #22. I threw chloramines out there to see your reaction. Since you don't dispute they are in your water let's assume they are. I don't believe you can simply filter them out.
My experience with contaminated yeast has been that the intended strain dominates and gives the expected flavor profile initially, but then, with time, the character from the contaminate strain starts coming through. This might happen whether the contamination is in the yeast itself or coming from the bucket.If it's the yeast, why does the beer taste fine out of the fermenter, but bad after 3-4 days in the keg?
I think this has been argued enough at this point. I go back to my previous post and say, bottle the next batch. That will clearly define if its ingredients/water/process or if it's keg/gas/etc.
Sorry, it can't NOT be every single potential thing that people mentioned. Do you want to get it fixed or not? It's time to open your mind to what it MIGHT be instead of what you're absolutely certain it's NOT.
You have given us zero description of your carbing process...it's force carbed, we know that, but do you set and forget? What's your storage/serving temp? Are you shaking it?
It's either your kegs or carbonic bite is my guess, but you've already said you're certain it's NOT those things...so I guess you're on your own.
Not a perfect answer, but I think it is worth considering.
I've got to agree with others here and say bottle a batch and see what happens.
FWIW - the undersides (inside the keg) of the in/out posts tend to be under cleaned and/or under sanitized. Those little nooks and crannies are hard to clean thoroughly. It's even harder to remember to clean them. You may be harboring a stinky critter in there.
If your getting your co2 from a welding store MAKE sure its not a blended argon/ co2 mix. I would change your co2 gas bottle out at a different source and see if that helps.
How are you cleaning your kegs " pbw or ??" How are you sanitizing your kegs " star san or ??. Why the addition of so many brewing salts. I would brew a batch with the local tap water, run it through a in line water filter and a RV hose so no "rubber hose" off flavors will be added. Both can be picked up at a local rv dealer or walmart. What this does is give you a baseline as to were to start with the addition of brewing salts if any are needed. Where I live ( Northern Az) I have never added anything to my water and have been brewing for 5 years with no issues and making great beers. Obviously water is different everywhere. Try it and see if that's the case.
What about your CO2 manifold (if you have one) or regulator? I have seen beer over carb or lines get reversed/clogged which caused beer to force it's way back up into a manifold and regulator that caused all kinds of funky problems in kegs.
This was one of the reasons I started the thread - obviously, I was overlooking something. Some suggestions are plausible but others are not. I won't waste my time with the more absurd suggestions.
Ok, now you're on to something. Every batch I've made with a starter has turned on me. I've made two batches out of the last ten with re-hydrated yeast and those are the only two that have been drinkable.
So I need to look at my yeast practices I guess. I slant and follow the guide in the "yeast slanting" thread, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong.
The first bottle I got from a LHBS. Subsequent refills have been at one of two welding shops, one more than the other. The less-often used welding shop gave me a cylinder that was contaminated. It made the beer taste REALLY bad, and I could even smell the taint coming right out of the CO2 bottle. The other one I'm pretty sure is pure CO2. I've had conversations with the guy about brewing, and he deals extensively with breweries and wineries so I would have to assume he's not selling me something that will ruin beer. But it is worth checking.
Ok, now you're on to something. Every batch I've made with a starter has turned on me. I've made two batches out of the last ten with re-hydrated yeast and those are the only two that have been drinkable.
Cloromine cant be filterd with a simple carbon filter nor will it boil off. You can get rid of it with campden tablets or a really expensive filter.
OP maybe i missed it but how much iron is in your water?
Co2 isnt very reactive but carbonic acid is. Mettalic taste WILL be more pronounced once carbonated.
This stands out to me. These 2 batches were kegged in the same kegs where you've been finding the off flavors and carbonated with the same CO2 source?
You said the taste is "metallic." Is there a way you can have a few other independent beer drinkers confirm that. Perhaps a brewclub? Or a BJCP judge?
As mentioned before, carbonic acid has a metallic taste. You sure it's not that?
What kind of chiller are you using? Do you soak it in Starsan for long lengths of time?
I cant believe this thread is still going.
This is a huge stretch I know, but is there any chance that the off flavor is coming from the glasses your dispensing the beer into?
Perhaps you mentioned doing this earlier, if so I apologize for missing it, but have you completely disassembled your disconnects and cleaned them? I recall an eerily similar thread on here a while back where the poster had great beer going into the kegs every time, but they then became contaminated within a short time after being tapped. Turned out there was some nastiness living in his gas disconnect. After he cleaned or replaced it (I can't remember which), the problem disappeared.
Pour off about 6 or 8 Oz from the keg into a glass. Let it get flat for about 30 minutes, swirl it etc. Pour off a fresh sample. Compare the two.
If the taste is not there in the original sample then you know it's the carbonation.
I actually did that last night. I tore apart everything on the gas side from the regulator (which I already cleaned) to the kegs. I soaked everything in PBW + hot water, ran a brush through the QD bodies and rinsed thoroughly. I also disassembled the manifold and cleaned it before putting it all back together.
So that should rule that out, hopefully.
I actually took a keg out of the keezer and let it warm up. A couple times a day, I shake it and vent the pressure. It's about flat now and I'm going to hook it back up to see if the flavor changed at all.
Also:
Instead of bottling, I decided to naturally carbonate a batch in the keg. I kegged a chocolate porter today - into a THOROUGHLY cleaned and sanitized keg. This will at least rule out everything that touches the keezer. If this doesn't come out right, I will bottle the next batch.
God I hate bottling lol
I soaked everything in PBW + hot water, ran a brush through the QD bodies and rinsed thoroughly.
Are you uncsrewing the QD's at the top and taking them apart to clean? The first time I did that was after a year or so of kegging, not realizing they actually came apart like that. I was horrified at the gunk.
One thing that I noticed with my system is if I force carbed, and it wasn't carbed enough, and I cranked the pressure back up, I got carbonic bite. Now I just put it to 30 psi, leave it for 3 days and the put it on the serving psi. Works good for American ales around 2.4 volumes.
Also, many off flavors (or flavors in general) taste much different flat than carbonated. Just taste a beer bulk aged but flat compared to the same beer carbonated. It's a world of difference.
Could also be that the recipes aren't that good? Since they've all been implicated, it's tough to rule this out.
So all the batches that are bad had one yeast source and the only batches that were good had another yeast source?
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