I am new here, but I appreciate all the information and content so far. It has helped me a lot with my brewing. I built a keezer not long ago, but both of my home-brews have come out with a plastic taste when coming from the tap. Is this from the PVC lines I am using for gas and beer line? My last 2 brews are in 5 gal corny kegs that were cleaned with OXY and sanitized with Star-San. Both brews were fermented (primary/secondary) in 5 gal buckets. One was an Irish Red Ale and another was a West Coast IPA.
The same batch was bottled and tastes fine. Any help you can provide is appreciated. Thanks y’all and I look forward to engaging with you in the future. Cheers!
Your problem sounds just like chlorophenol, which is an off-flavor that comes from the chlorine in municipal tap water. Are you using city water? If this is the case, to prevent this in future, you need to add 1/2 Campden tablet (also known as “sulfite” or “metabisulfite”), crushed, for every 5 gallons of water, before the water touches any malt. Chlorophenol is a common off-flavor in beers that used chlorinated water.
I used bottled spring water for the Westie and distilled for the red ale. The only difference between these two batches and my first one was secondary fermentation. Maybe that is the issue that is leading to infection? I have cleaned and sanitized everything thoroughly before moving to fermentation and secondary.
(This should probably be in a different board at this point)
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as far as secondary is concerned. I am still new and I was following the directions, but with more research I am learning it isn’t necessary for all beers.
I will change out the beer lines as well. Thank you for the info and recommendations. I look forward to learning from y’all on the boards!
There are many different types of PVC so you’d have to research which is pressure rated, which is not and which is food safe. Other than C-PVC, you’re probably not going to find what you want in a big box store. Most likely you’d have to go to a plumbing supply store. But, like others have stated, you should switch out to beer line - use the right tools for the right job.
It depends on what ID you have and what barb you have. The tubing is not very flexible or stretchy the way vinyl and PVC are, so it won’t go over a barb easily, and the hose clamp won’t squish it as well. I would strongly recommend using the Duotight fittings. They are easy to use and I have never had a leak with one. You can even rotate the tubing in the fitting if you need to do that to orient a ball-lock fitting properly, and you can do it under pressure without making a leak. You can’t that with a hose clamp.
For what it is worth, my kegerator uses red gas line from the tank to the in post on the keg. Both have small hose clamps. They came that way from the guy I bought it all from, so I left it. My tap line is the same, the connection at the keg is a clear, food grade tubing and a small hose clamp. Where it connects to the tap I think that also has a clamp. Seeing how cheap the evabarrier is, I might buy 10 feet of it with my next grain order from Morebeer. Either way, I would for sure lose the PVC. Just seems like that is not the proper use for beer distribution, but I am just as much a novice as you are, so take it all for what it is worth. RR
My gas line is red as well, but it is PVC. I just ordered the beer line everyone suggested from MoreBeer and I will be replacing all of the lines this weekend. Thank you for the insight!