I'll start by saying I've been brewing for a few years now. Kegging for the last year or so. All grain.
Twice now I've gotten odd flavors only after kegging. Beer tasted fine pre kegging, and a few weeks later it's rough. The smell reminds me of old beer, left out. Taste is similar, but also sweet with vanilla notes. It first happened with a blonde ale that tasted so much like vanilla it was dumped. Now, a few months later it happened to an oktoberfest.
I usually add 1L of sanitizer, pressurize and shake. Degass, dump, fill with beer and purge headspace several times. The blonde ale was force carbed (set and forget, 12PSI). The oktoberfest had priming sugar added, sat at 65 and it never carbed. I figured there wasn't yeast left in suspension. I added a cup of still fermenting pilsner two weeks later. Now after a few more weeks the flavor is off and it's still not carbed.
I'm assuming in both cases that I've oxidized both beers some how. Neither beer was highly hopped which doesn't help. Am I right here? What should I be doing differently?
The other possibility is autolysis to some extent. Since the beer is still poorly carbed maybe there's something else at play here. Maybe adding the pilsner messed something up. Also lines have not been cleaned yet. I bought the most expensive lines available, I can't recall which. Since I've never had any lingering flavors, I've left it. This weekend I'll be cleaning them, but I have a hard time believing it's my problem.
Sorry for the long post and thank you for your advice.
Twice now I've gotten odd flavors only after kegging. Beer tasted fine pre kegging, and a few weeks later it's rough. The smell reminds me of old beer, left out. Taste is similar, but also sweet with vanilla notes. It first happened with a blonde ale that tasted so much like vanilla it was dumped. Now, a few months later it happened to an oktoberfest.
I usually add 1L of sanitizer, pressurize and shake. Degass, dump, fill with beer and purge headspace several times. The blonde ale was force carbed (set and forget, 12PSI). The oktoberfest had priming sugar added, sat at 65 and it never carbed. I figured there wasn't yeast left in suspension. I added a cup of still fermenting pilsner two weeks later. Now after a few more weeks the flavor is off and it's still not carbed.
I'm assuming in both cases that I've oxidized both beers some how. Neither beer was highly hopped which doesn't help. Am I right here? What should I be doing differently?
The other possibility is autolysis to some extent. Since the beer is still poorly carbed maybe there's something else at play here. Maybe adding the pilsner messed something up. Also lines have not been cleaned yet. I bought the most expensive lines available, I can't recall which. Since I've never had any lingering flavors, I've left it. This weekend I'll be cleaning them, but I have a hard time believing it's my problem.
Sorry for the long post and thank you for your advice.
