Struggling with off-Flavour, Infection?

Last couple of brews have all had a distinct taste to them. Best way I can describe it is a fruity flavour that lingers. Sort of like eating an orange with the peel on, but not so dry tasting. Not to be confused with sucking on a orange peel... it's definitely not astringent like that. Maybe slightly astringent.

At first I thought it was related to my recipes but I brewed a beer I have on tap every year at this time and it had the same flavour.

This is a little more than frustrating as I don't brew all that often, so finding the time to troubleshoot this is hard. Here's what I did find after checking the Cold side of my brewing:





Would this cause the beer to be infected? There was no visible sign of an infection during the fermentation. I did however taste the off flavour when taking samples.

If this may be the cause then I'm also worried about my plate chiller. I always back flush with oxyclean after brewing but maybe some hop particles got stuck in the plates? I hear baking is a good solution, at what temp and for how long should I do that?

Also, if this is an infection that means everything downstream needs to be tossed?? I have a glass carboy and a plastic one. I'm assuming my plastic one is toast?

 

The ball valve while gross is unlikely the culprit in my opinion. If that valve is the one on your kettle than it is most likely being heated to well over the temp it would take to kill any bugs. If you are recirculating through the chiller for the last few minutes of the boil then you should also be killing anything in the chiller.

 

Okay so I should then maybe try fermenting in another vessel next go around.