New Guy Needs Some Help

[Beercoholic]

I got a kegerator at the begining of the summer. The first two kegs were fine then I started having problems with the next two. The first beer of the day would always be bad, it smelled skunk and tasted funny. I am thinking it was the beer that is sitting in my hose, but I dont want to have to poor my first beer out everyday. The beer would be bad even if it had only been sitting in the hose for a day. Any suggestions?

[Gordy]

Have you been cleaning the lines and hardware?? Lots of nasties can accumulate in a short period of time especially if you have the standard rear sealing faucet (non Perlick).

[Beercoholic]

I have cleaned the lines after each keg using the cleaning solution and instructions that were given to me with the purchase of the kegerator. Should that be sufficient?

[TomK]

Cleaning between kegs should include disassembling and cleaning the coupler and faucet as well.

[pvs6]

Originally Posted by Beercoholic

The first beer of the day would always be bad, it smelled skunk and tasted funny. I am thinking it was the beer that is sitting in my hose, but I dont want to have to poor my first beer out everyday.

The first beer has an off taste you said is that the only reason you have to discard it or is there foaming too? Do you have a tower fan and\or keg box fan? If it's just the taste without foam you might want to try an experiment. In the keg coupler there is a check valve ball, those function is to keep the little bit of beer in the line from run back out of the coupler once it's disconnected. You can remove this with the only negative effect being a little amount of beer dripping out of the coupler when un-tapping that you have to sponge up. Some people have reported and I'm one of them that the plastic ball and retainer were imparting a bad taste to the beer if it was in contact for extended periods. When the beer was flowing frequently you didn't really taste it but after sitting for 8 hours the prolonged contact caused a bad taste. You can try removing the ball and retainer and see if that makes any difference, if it does you can simply live without it or buy the ball valve here since by all accounts this one will not effect taste, if no change is noted then you can put it back in.

[lsb188]

Originally Posted by pvs6

Do you have a tower fan and\or keg box fan?

Does anyone have a link to any post showing details for a keg box fan? I have a tower fan, just want to add a fan to move the air. I'm looking for details, e.g., what to buy, where folks bought it, how it is mounted/attached/hung, etc. Thanks!