Recent content by Aloha_Brew

Ah hah...eureka, and then some. Forgot about the fundamental fact that equalization with active resistance would result in the closing of the ball valve until pressure increased again on the gas side. I stand corrected good sir, and will now look for check valves as you have described. I've had...

What I'm saying is that a check valve may stop most of the problem I seem to be having with beer entering the line, but it cannot stop it all because the pressure can equalize between the line and the keg; this still allows beer dispersed by the introduction of gas to pass by a check valve. A...

I'm not sure how a check valve would help in my case, as I always have my gas valve open to provide constant pressure for dispensing. From what I know of check valves, they only work when the pressure on the opposite side of the source (in this case, the keg with beer) is greater, to protect the...

Update: I tasted my Flander's Red about a week ago (6-7 weeks after placing in the primary). It had a definite sour taste to it, but was a milder sourness and not altogether unpleasant. I just brewed my lambic over the weekend and made a starter for by Brett Lambicus since it was past...

The other day I was tasting my dopplebock and it tasted fine but I decided to up the CO2 pressure to give it some more fiz. After doing so I noticed that a familiar sour/ sulfur taste, so yesterday I took apart my gas lines and the connections. I noticed in the ball-lock connections a small...

I got in touch with White Labs, who also does analysis, and they basically recommended to try and solve the problem rather than spend money shipping the sample to find what bacteria are there. I described the problems to them and they seemed to agree that it was Acetobacter, or something called...

Ah, the good old days...:D What's really killing me is the two out of three kegs. If it's a true problem outside of the kegs then it should have popped up in that last keg by now (more than six months and about 9 batches already!). I've shared the same sanitation practices with all three kegs...

I can see the weld between the cylinder and the top itself and I tried to clean it as best as I could, but I can only feel the weld where the dipsticks connect. I did clean them with brushes and with a soft scouring pad (the fibrous type of threaded material and not like a green scouring pad or...

Reading John Palmer's "How to Brew," as mentioned before, he didn't mention anything about re-pacifying. I understand how that could solve the problem if it really was leaching, but I am not tasting any metalic flavor. It is a distinct souring that is closer to malt vinegar than anything...

Well, it would seem as if all my efforts were for nothing. I have been dispensing my recent pilsner over the last four days and yesterday noticed a slight "huskiness" (the best way I can describe the onset) to it. Today it had less huskiness and more of a malt vinegar bite and smell. It is...

I bought campden tablets for future cleanings, after each use, but I figured if bleach/ boiling water/ PBW/ StarSan didn't solve the problem then a campden tablet would not have been able to do much more. Before I transferred beer into the kegs a few days ago, and after the StarSan question I...

Well that would just suck, as it sounds as if I can't do anything to stop this leeching process from occuring again in the future... I'm hoping that such a situation does not apply to me, but I will keep on eye out for a reoccurance. I can only think that I didn't replace the poppets and relief...

I'm fairly sure that it's the amount of yeast that I have been pitching, or the lack thereof, that is causing the sulfur taste. I'm not too sure about the diacetyl though, whether that is increased by the supposedly stressed yeast or if I'm somehow introducing too much oxygen during my whole...

So far, so good with the cleaning. Time will tell if the problem is truly solved. I'll taste it again before I hook up any lines to the kegs, just to make sure that if any problem develop they would be more likely to have come from them rather than the keg. Now all I have to do is figure out the...

Last weekend I cleaned all three of my corny kegs. Did the scrub with dish soap, rinsed with water, added bleach (70ml for the 5 gallons) to water that topped off each keg, rinsed with boiling water, and then filled with water and PBW. I let that sit overnight and then rinsed thoroughly with...