My keg tastes terrible.

[bernerbrau]

So it is just this one keg...? Very strange, I am really curious as to what the issue might be.

I'm not 100% sure if it's restricted to this one keg or not because I don't keep good enough notes... but having the issue pop up twice in the same keg is arousing my suspicions. I'm thinking I had a light lager develop this taste in the same keg early last year.

 

[Old_mil_guy]

I've read several comments on bitter and starsan. When you say a gallon, you mean you mixed starsan with a gallon of distilled water?

 

[bernerbrau]

I've read several comments on bitter and starsan. When you say a gallon, you mean you mixed starsan with a gallon of distilled water?

Tap water, but yes. A gallon of concentrated starsan per keg would be a bit spensive.

The hell with it, I'll give that a try and see if a drop of starsan funkifies some beer.

 

[VAShooter]

Subscribed. I just bought my first keg and the beer smells funky but actually doesnt taste near as bad as it smells.

 

[Old_mil_guy]

Tap water, but yes. A gallon of concentrated starsan per keg would be a bit spensive.

I thought so but just trying not to overlook anything.
No idea if there's any benefit but I'm using starsan and rinsing again with boiled water.

 

[Chad_C]

I never rinse out my kegs after I use starsan, and I use it within seconds of putting the beer into the keg. I have never had off flavors from starsan so I wouldn't think thats your problem.

I may have missed it, but have you tried to take a sample from the top of your keg? And I do mean to take the lid off, and remove a sample. If that tastes fine, your at least focus it down to the outlet of the keg.

 

[bernerbrau]

I never rinse out my kegs after I use starsan, and I use it within seconds of putting the beer into the keg. I have never had off flavors from starsan so I wouldn't think thats your problem.

What if my dip tube's too short in that keg and there was a pool of it in the bottom? It's a longshot but can't hurt to rule it out.

 

[Chad_C]

Hmmm... You did say you pumped it out, I forgot about that. I just pump a little bit out, then tip it upside down to get rid of it.

Did you catch my second part? I edited it to add.

 

[bernerbrau]

Yep, been there, done that. No difference. Up to this point I have tried everything under the sun except bleach bomb it and replace all the non-metal parts.

 

[robbiex0r]

Did you try the distilled water in the keg test?

 

[edmanster]

Have you found a good caustic cleaner yet? I use CIPTON (vc11).. Only 1 of my lhbs has it.. He gets it from a brewery...

 

[ThreeBrothersBrewery]

Have you found a good caustic cleaner yet? I use CIPTON.. Only 1 of my lhbs has it.. He gets it from a brewery...

Sounds like someone visits Art's.

 

[edmanster]

Sounds like someone visits Art's.

You got it!! That cleaner is worth its weight in gold

 

[bernerbrau]

Did you try the distilled water in the keg test?

I have not yet. I was pressed for time this weekend when kegging, otherwise I would have. Of course... look what happens when you rush things

That said, wouldn't a bleaching + replacing o-rings, disconnects and lines tell me the same thing?

 

[organikbrewer]

I would have to taste the beer to really give a good answer, but it seems to me your just over doing your cleaning and sanitizing. I think your just tainting your beer with cleaner or sanitizer. Before you fill your keg just rinse it well with potable water. Home brewers have been scared about contamination, but the biggest enemy of your home brew is oxygen, and remember that sanitizers are oxidizers and will stale your beer much quicker than any air and ruin your beer faster than any bacteria. Most infection aren't from poor cleaning but from infected yeast. Try just using hot water to sanitize your equipment, there is risk of taint and if you maintain 180 degrees for about 15 minutes it will be sanitary. Bacteria needs to be at 20,000 cell per ml before it will cause off flavors, that is large infection. A few cells will not ruin a beer, just as a few cells of yeast wont ferment a beer. Oxygen is very damaging, you need to keep oxygen pick up below 20 micro grams per liter to prevent staling. So fill your keg with hot water and push it out with co2 and purge it a few times then make sure your rack your beer under positive co2 pressure and you should have perfect beer. Also remember that Beer is micro biologically stable, that is why you cant get sick from drinking beer. The low pH, alcohol, and hops prevent or retard the growth of most bacteria, the more alcohol and hops the better. Also make sure your treating your mash water for pH and that your final beer is reaching a pH of around 4.2 if it is higher than 4.5 than your beer loses it microbiological stability. So mellow out on the cleaning, your equipment should be clean but, the detergents are worse for your beer than a little soil or bacteria. Good luck.

 

[Brewdok]

I have been kegging my beer for at least the last 15 years and have never had an off taste. I clean them with a dilute solution of bleach and rinse thoroughly Disassemble all parts run the solution though the dip tube and co2 side and rinse. Stainless steel does not impart off flavors. Try bottling a few beers from the same batch and try in e few weeks to see if they develop the same flavors some times an off flavor will develop after some time.

 

[phoenixs4r]

I must be insane or something. I take a freshly kicked keg and wash the crap out with hot water, sanitize and refill. Every 3 months or so I'll run cleaner through the lines but I haven't had any issue with tastes, off flavors or infections. I do go though quite a bit of beer though.

 

[triangulum33]

I had a rotten keg once.

I lost 3 or 4 batches kinda similar to the OP. This was with dissasembly and starsan soak each batch.
I finally soaked the keg full of very hot PBW for an hour then rinsed about 85 times, and the problem went away. I think there was some little pocket of evilness somewhere in there that the SS was not getting rid of.

 

[lylo]

Kegs can have bad welds on them and tossing is the only solution.

 

[oakbarn]

WE have 27 kegs and have not had this problem. We made a keg washer:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/keg-carboy-pot-cleaner-321563/

 

[bernerbrau]

OK. I noticed this thread made Facebook (yay, I'm famous) and all of a sudden traffic shot up. Here's what's going on right now.

Last night I bottled off the funkified beer, and kicked another keg which is unknown if it's caused me problems (the last batch in it was pretty stale, but it was nearly 10 months old).

So this morning I half-filled both with hot water and OxyClean and sealed them up tight. Soaked an hour rightside up and an hour upside down. I then disassembled them, scrubbed out the inside, removed and discarded o-rings, scrubbed the dip tubes and put the pieces in hot OxyClean to soak. After scrubbing I felt around the inside of both kegs and they both feel squeaky clean. Smell test indicates nothing off.

I dumped the OxyClean, rinsed once with cold water, dumped, filled again with cold water, added 2 tablespoons of bleach, and they're soaking now for an hour.

I have brand new o-rings, beverage post disconnects, beer lines, and hex nut washers. After rinsing everything thoroughly (making sure the chlorine is out of the kegs, possibly using campden) I'll sanitize the pieces and kegs in star san, assemble and seal, shake around, open up, invert the kegs to drain out, then purge the kegs with CO2 3 times before racking.

It takes about 12-24 hours for the bad taste to show up, so I'll report back tomorrow on the results.

 

[ResumeMan]

So here's something I haven't seen mentioned (unless I missed it in the previous pages, if so I apologize for the redundant redundancy).

Have you checked the beer line? A couple months ago I picked up some new 3/16 beer line and hooked it up. The beer tasted terrible! A real foul bitter medicinal taste. I switched back to the line I had on there before, and it was fine. Returned the hose to the store.

Are you possibly using one specific hose for that keg? If so try swapping it out for a different hose, preferably one you used on a keg you know didn't taste bad.

 

[jfrizzell]

Have you tried changing the poppets in the suspect keg? I had a keg that seemed to be giving me strange flavors in my beers. Changed the poppets and the problem went away.

 

[bernerbrau]

So... a couple hours ago I just by chance happened to feel the inside of one of my gas QDs... and it was pretty gunky.

I sniffed... and it smelled pretty close to the flavor that's been plaguing my beers. Apparently I got some beer up in my gas line at some point, and never checked the line.

I sprayed the thing out with star san, wiped it clean and hooked it up. Will report back tomorrow on the results.

 

[ResumeMan]

If it's that nasty, take it apart and rinse out all the little parts good, then re-sanitize. Make SURE there's no crap on it.

 

[jagec]

Also remember that Beer is micro biologically stable, that is why you cant get sick from drinking beer.

Then you're not drinking enough of it.

 

[oakbarn]

We clean our in and outs every time with PBW.
You can get a pump at Harbor Freight for less than $15.
Get some 1/2 PVC at Local Box Store and a gray gas in and black beer out.
We also fill with about a 1.2 gal of warm PBW and leave inverted for 10 minutes.
We feel the top and use a soft scubbie if needed and give extra time for any that are extra dirty.
We also fill with water to the brim and leave overnight when we float them. We do not delay but do this right away.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/keg-carboy-pot-cleaner-321563/

 

[bernerbrau]

OK. I noticed this thread made Facebook (yay, I'm famous) and all of a sudden traffic shot up. Here's what's going on right now.

Last night I bottled off the funkified beer, and kicked another keg which is unknown if it's caused me problems (the last batch in it was pretty stale, but it was nearly 10 months old).

So this morning I half-filled both with hot water and OxyClean and sealed them up tight. Soaked an hour rightside up and an hour upside down. I then disassembled them, scrubbed out the inside, removed and discarded o-rings, scrubbed the dip tubes and put the pieces in hot OxyClean to soak. After scrubbing I felt around the inside of both kegs and they both feel squeaky clean. Smell test indicates nothing off.

I dumped the OxyClean, rinsed once with cold water, dumped, filled again with cold water, added 2 tablespoons of bleach, and they're soaking now for an hour.

I have brand new o-rings, beverage post disconnects, beer lines, and hex nut washers. After rinsing everything thoroughly (making sure the chlorine is out of the kegs, possibly using campden) I'll sanitize the pieces and kegs in star san, assemble and seal, shake around, open up, invert the kegs to drain out, then purge the kegs with CO2 3 times before racking.

It takes about 12-24 hours for the bad taste to show up, so I'll report back tomorrow on the results.

So... a couple hours ago I just by chance happened to feel the inside of one of my gas QDs... and it was pretty gunky.

I sniffed... and it smelled pretty close to the flavor that's been plaguing my beers. Apparently I got some beer up in my gas line at some point, and never checked the line.

I sprayed the thing out with star san, wiped it clean and hooked it up. Will report back tomorrow on the results.

End result: the beers taste great, no off flavors.

So either I got lucky, or something I did fixed the problem.

I don't want to speak too soon, so I'll report back with the results on future batches.

 

[1KD1]

Glad to hear ya found something.

 

[soopagloo]

I have been having a very similar problem. I wash with pbw, star san, then purge/keg. Beer tastes fine at this point from the tap while flat. A few weeks later I would have a bitter, metallic taste. This last batch, I rinsed as usual (I'm a water waster and figured I was rinsing enough). After my normal rinse procedure everything seemed good, no residue feeling inside the keg. I then filled it up all the way in the driveway where I had good sunlight. I could see very few grains of the pbw still floating in the water. Not much, but it was there. I rinsed the crap out of the keg again and sanitized and kegged. One month later, no bitter metallic taste and a very fine Scotch ale running low. I'm kegging up a couple this week and hopefully will have the same results.