Ok, so in cleaning all of my equipment today I decided to take apart the ball valve from my brew kettle and this is what I found. Pretty disgusting and is most likely the culprit. I've always cleaned it with a brush, but obviously it was not getting everything. I also would've thought that since it's on the brew kettle it would've got hot enough to kill any bacteria, but maybe being on the outside of the kettle it wasn't getting hot enough. I'm going to clean the hell out of this one, but I'll also be ordering a 3-piece for easier cleaning moving forward.
