Equipment: Corny Keg, Kegorator w/faucet, Beer Gun (gas spliced off CO2 line), and CO2 tank.
Problem: Beer coming out of faucet always tastes a bit metallic maybe? or just not exactly right… carb?
But when I fill bottles (any size) with the beer gun, cap them, and drink them a few days later, they always taste absolutely perfect!
I’ve disassembled, cleaned, and sterilized all the lines and fixtures to no avail. My carbonation process is force carb at 30PSI for 24-48 hours with rolling here and there, then reduce pressure to 10PSI and 7PSI for serving. No sugar involved.
Well, the only thing that touches the beer is the line connected to the keg, and that goes to the faucet which is standard. Not sure if it’s stainless or not.
This was my first thought as well, though I believe it takes time for beer to eat through chrome. I have heard stories of people disassembling their kegerators after a few months to find that all chrome had been dissolved.
If you’re working with a draft tower, you can buy stainless steel elbow shanks from micromatic.
Also, if you are using standard rear seal faucets, consider upgrading to Perlick forward sealing faucets (all stainless). They eliminate sticky/stuck taps, and are pretty much just awesome all around.
You can find them for a much better price if you shop around.
Is is possible the beer is picking up an off flavor from the liquid lines? I’ve had issues before with new lines where the beer that sits in them between pours picks up sort of a rubbery chemical off flavor. It wouldn’t explain the difference between beer dispensed from your taps and the beergun though (unless maybe you are clearing out that ounce of two of line beer before using the gun and you aren’t doing that when pouring from the taps).
except he says it tastes perfect after bottling from the keg.
I say it’s carbonic bite which can taste kind of metallic. When you bottle from the keg it knocks the edge of the carbonation and after it equalizes it tastes good again.
if it were leaching from metal or infection it wouldn’t get better after a few days in the bottle
Is the beer excessively carbonated? Does it taste ok if you fill a glass from the tap and let it settle for a bit?
I thought the whole point of the beer gun is that you aren’t supposed to lose a lot of carbonation when bottling.
Unless the off flavor is coming from the shank or the faucet which are being bypassed when bottling from the beergun (though it does seem a bit early in the life of the kegerator for leaching).
Closing the loop on this thread, I saw a video by the guy from www.cellardweller.net about creating a beer line cleaner out of a hand-pump garden sprayer from home depot, modified to have a corny keg post on the end of the hose. Filled it with hot water and cleaner mix, pressurized, connected to beer line of faucet, ran through clean for a while. Then, filled it with Iodophor sanitizer mix, and ran it til it came through, let it sit, then disconnected line cleaner, re-connected keg beer line, ran through til all beer coming out, and beer tastes great now.
absolutely awesome homemade beerline cleaner for super-cheap and no wasted of CO2!
^^^^^^^^^^. I have a 630SS as well. Great investment. I used to have a rear seal chrome faucet -they’re crap. It would get sticky and seize up if I didn’t pour a beer every 3 days, hard to clean, etc. Buying this faucet, using BLC twice a year and changing the line every year TOTALLY got rid of the issues for me.
Instead of building a kegerator cleaner with a sprayer, I just use a keg. When the keg kicks, I clean it,and then hook the lines back up, pressurize with CO2 and run PBW through the lines and faucet. Do the same with rinse water and sanitizer. Clean kegs and lines all at the same time.
I used to do this, too, and it works just fine. But with the rise in cost of kegs, the modified sprayer option is a cheap and effective way to free up one more of my limited number of kegs.
