Plastic taste in my Kolsch

[bhdail]

Not sure what I did but I have a plastic taste in my Kolsch. I'm a rookie so want to learn what may have caused that so I don't repeat the mistake.

I'm also having trouble getting carbonation in the beer. I keg the beer and force carbonated at 20psi. Brought the pressure down to 10psi to serve and it's really flat. Another rookie mistake I'm sure but I don't know how to correct it.

Thanks for the help!

 

[unionrdr]

Is your Fv,etc all food grade plastic?

 

[bhdail]

Yes, everything is food grade plastic. Have brewed many batches using the same equipment and never had a problem.

 

[hector]

Did you use tap Water ?

 

[Yooper]

"Plastic" taste usually is caused by chlorophenols- chlorine or chloramines in brewing water can do it. Did you use bottled spring water or tap water?

 

[unionrdr]

I thought about those chlorine chemicals on my 1st one,with the off flavors it had. I went to spring water on this batch myself. I wonder if his tap water is like ours? You can just taste the chemicals.

 

[bhdail]

We have good tap water, no chemical or off tastes to it. I've never used anything other then my tap water to brew and this is the first time I've had this kind of plastic taste in a beer.

To clean my tap lines I'll run a solution of 1 step cleaner through the lines and let it sit in there for a few days. Could this be doing something to the lines that putting a plastic taste in the beer?

 

[malkore]

Use beer line cleaner to clean tap lines. Its acidic nature is better at cleaning beer than a percarbonate cleanser like 1 step/oxyclean.

20psi would MORE than carb up a beer. How long is your tap line? How long does it take to pour a pint?
I suspect you are well-carbed but too high psi to dispense and you're blowing it out of solution while pouring.

 

[bhdail]

I've bled off the CO2 in my tank and set my PSI at 10 to see if that helps with my carbonation. My lines around around 3 ft long and they've worked fine up until this batch. My setup has worked in the past so my guess is that I'm doing something wrong.

If I can get the carbonation issue figured out it still leaves me with the plastic taste. I forget the name but if a beer sits in the secondary to long can you run into problems with the yeast breaking apart and that affecting the taste? Read that it can give your beer a rubbery taste if that happens. Mine was in the secondary for around 4 weeks.