That beer line taste problem and is it really the beer line?

[Bob G]

Howdy,

I had a similar problem last fall with beer line I bought from AHS.
The line I purchased was supposed to be Bev-lex or whatever but it looked different and had a strong plastic smell to the line even after cleaning and sanitizing. They took care of the problem quickly and apologized for the mixup. All good now.
Don't waste beer, change the tubing.

Cheers,
Bob

[maxwell]

Sorry to dig out a long-dead thread, but I'm having similar problems with line recently bought from morebeer. It is the Foxx superflex 3/16" inner diameter line. Any beer left sitting in the line for more than a few minutes has a strong plastic taste that is easily detectable even in an IPA. Is the solution really to just suck it up and buy some more line from someone else? Has anyone had luck in completely removing line flavor through soaking or chemical treatment? I contacted morebeer customer service about this and was told that I caused the problem by soaking the line in sodium percarbonate solution for 20 minutes, which is an interesting take on the matter but frankly seems unlikely given that the draughtquality.org manual specifically recommends cleaning beer lines with alkaline solutions for contact times of at least 15-20 minutes.

[Dean Palmer]

The issue could be that although an "alkaline solution" was used, it was the wrong type in some way. I haven't seen where the use of what is essentially OxyClean would harm the lines or impart this flavor as most of these products are the same as sodium percarbonate with some trisodium phosphate and other additives.

The proper tool is beer line cleaner (BLC) which you'd be hard-pressed to find the major chemical difference from the above other than again some specific additives. There is also Acid Line Cleaner which has the purpose of removing beerstone and similar buildups. PBW can also be suitable but is not always the best, and again about the same composition.

My opinion is that it might be the lines themselves. There are numerous cases where folks have received funky plastic lines that impart smell and taste like cheap hardware store products. I'd replace the lines, but I also always recommend that only chemicals specific to serving lines be used.

Dean