Beer sitting in my keg lines taste like sh*t

[Stevorino]

I have a fairly new 4 tap keezer, some of the lines have actually never been used.

One thing I've realized recently is that the beer that sits in my lines tastes like complete crap. It tastes like melted nylon. At first I actually thought my beer was just screwed up -- but now I have gotten used to pouring off the first half of a pint and the rest tastes wonderful.

Anyone know if this is normal and/or how to fix this problem?

[Chupa LaHomebrew]

I'm just going to offer the conventional advice, it could be that the hoses are low-quality or possibly that they are too new.

Try running some BLC through, letting it sit, and then rinsing with warm water. If you bought all the stuff new, I don't see what the problem could be other than that. If the lines or any of the parts were bought used, inspect them. Bad flavors could also come from the shanks or taps. Try to go with stainless for both of those. If you are still having problems, replace the lines! Use high quality 3/16 inch ID liquid line.

[Stevorino]

I'm just going to offer the conventional advice, it could be that the hoses are low-quality or possibly that they are too new.

Try running some BLC through, letting it sit, and then rinsing with warm water. If you bought all the stuff new, I don't see what the problem could be other than that. If the lines or any of the parts were bought used, inspect them. Bad flavors could also come from the shanks or taps. Try to go with stainless for both of those. If you are still having problems, replace the lines! Use high quality 3/16 inch ID liquid line.

Do new lines usually give off-flavors?

I'm using perlick faucets, MoreBeer 3/16 Superflex Tubing, Stainless Shanks/Nipples -- all new.

[one_dead_soul]

i'm gonna go ahead and say you shouldn't scratch your ass with your tap or any of your hose. .. i would go ahaed and buy new line and give everything a good once over.. there is no point in risking getting whatever is in your lines, in your keg. you don't need any fancy shit eather. go to your local hardware store and pick up whatever fits. it will probably be fine.

tom

[Stevorino]

FWIW, I figured it out.

MoreBeer had some defective line that I was using. I'm not messing around w/ Vinyl tubing anymore -- It's getting serious now boys

[bcmaui]

I purchased a 100' coil of that More Beer 3/16" line and was also getting medicinal off flavors when first connecting the line. For new lines I have been recirculating and flushing them with many gallons of Starsan before connecting to the beer and the off flavor went away. It has also disappeared from the original lines.

[ajdelange]

That shouldn't happen. Maybe you should get your beer lines from Rapids or Micromatic. OTOH I think highly enough of B^3 to assume that if they were made aware of this problem they would find another supplier. Have any of you told them about this?

[Stevorino]

That shouldn't happen. Maybe you should get your beer lines from Rapids or Micromatic. OTOH I think highly enough of B^3 to assume that if they were made aware of this problem they would find another supplier. Have any of you told them about this?

I haven't myself -- I bought my tubing probably about 4 months or so ago and really don't care to bother with the process of getting it replaced (you'll see why below). There are a couple of people on another forum that had the same problem and MoreBeer replied to their complaints acknowledging that it was defective and offered to replace the lines with other tubing or refund the order. Since then, they have indeed switched suppliers.

For those interested, I actually looked around the internet quite a bit trying to find out if I was the only one experiencing the plastic taste. This is what I found out:

- Some people are much more sensitive to detecting the plastic off-flavors in beer lines than others.
- If you pour a full pint glass plastic flavors are typically very hard to detect. Where it is easily detectable is when the beer sits in the line more than 4-6 hours and you only pour off what was in the lines. I was having this issue because I was sampling the carbonation in my beer and only pouring off the first 2-4 ounces.
- All PVC/Vinyl tubing will leave some kind of an off-flavor, although some are better than others
- Poly tubing is slightly better.

- The best tubing seems to be Bev-Seal Ultra tubing -- it is distributed in the US by Better Bottle. Unfortunately the smallest it comes in is 1/4" ID -- so you'll have some fat lines. Second place is Tygon tubing and it does come in the typical 3/16" ID.

- My best source that brought it all together was a guy running an experiment on Homebrewtalk -- here's the link: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/beer-li ... ste-60380/