6 replies to this topic

[jwatkins56550]

So, after a long time tasting this similar taste in my beers, which was like a staleness..I got fed up and decided to take a keg, clean it as I would normally do, and fill it with filtered water and hook it up to my c02. It's not carbonated yet, but I can already taste this flavor. In the water, is it much more apparent. It tastes like old soda. This doesn't make much sense, as I've had these kegs for a long time, and not until recently have had this problem...or maybe I just never noticed it. I have replaced most of the o-rings. The one that I have not replaced has been the gas dip tube o-ring. Now I said before I felt I didn't have this problem before, so that is why it took me so long to get this down. Albeit, my kegs sat at room temp for a long time before I got a kegerator...dunno if that would effect it.Hopefully this will solve my problems.Any other suggestions for replacement parts? Poppets?

[stellarbrew]

Have you recently swapped a CO2 tank? I'm wondering if your CO2 tank might have been accidentally backwashed with a cleaning solution by previous user.

[Fatman]

How about the beerline in the kegerator? I had a slightly off "house taste" for awhile that went away when I changed the line.

[JimInNJ]

Time to change the water filter?- Jim

[dapittboss]

I found tiny bit of crud, barely visible, at the point where my aeration line attaches to my diffusion stone. I believe this crud gave a similiar off flavor to two batches of beer via infection. It was a subtle flaw, but stale could be used to describe it.

[Dave McG]

I got fed up and decided to take a keg, clean it as I would normally do, and fill it with filtered water and hook it up to my c02. It's not carbonated yet, but I can already taste this flavor. In the water, is it much more apparent. It tastes like old soda.

I find carbonic acid to have a scent like old soda, and that's the form CO2 takes on when dissolved in water. Which coincedently, is a main ingredient in soda. With soda and beer there are other scents to confuse things, but with water it is more noticable. Have the affected beers been very light, or very low hopped where there was less to hide behind?

[jwatkins56550]

My c02 could be the cause, although I did have dirty c02 lines, I have replaced them along with a new check valve. Question, does a check valve just prevent liquid from coming back into the regulator, can air still go through? Shouldn't be an old line, I recently changed lines and disconnects. I don't use a stone to aerate but rather attach a wine degasser to whirlpool, and stick the hose by the rotating wort to pick up 02. The beers ranged from hoppy to malty, to roasty. It took a while for these flavors to become more apparent, and I feel that since I described it as old soda taste, I am getting it from all of my kegs. I was looking for a taste like you get when you draw from a soda fountain that has run out of syrup, even though they use a motorized carbonator. This taste was not like that. I do have another regulator that I will try. Also, I feel that when I clean my kegs, they never smell very clean, I always get some sort of odor that I cannot put my finger on. My cleaning regimen seems pretty good though...soak with b brite, turn over, and soak some more... draw cleaner through lines, rinse, make a star san solution, soak, and drain through lines. This is really an annoyance, and I appreciate all your help!