Is something wrong with my beer or is it just too young?

[XiRho]

Evening everyone!

A couple of days ago I kegged my Pale Ale (from Greg Hughes's book). It is my first time using corny kegs. I am force carbing it and today decided to taste a small glass partly to check if it was carbonating as expected, and partly out of impatience to drink! Unfortunately I struggled to drink the small glass I poured. There is a very very sharp taste, which I cannot describe as anything other than sharp (in a not nice way). It is noticeable by smell and overpowers any other flavours which may have been in the beer.

Brew day went as planned, OG was 1.044 pretty much as predicted, with a FG of 1.011 (1 point higher than planned). Spent 13 days in the fermentor, S-04 at 18c for the first few days then 19c for the remainder. The only thing I can think that I did wrong was that I forgot to purge the keg after filling it.

Any thoughts on what could be going on here? Is the beer just too green still, I don't need the keg soon so will be leaving it for a while anyway. Could it be infected? (everything looked normal inside the fermentor). Something else?

Thoughts apprecaited!

 

[foxbat]

Are you force carbonating under high pressure or are you doing 'set it and forget it' ? You might be tasting carbonic acid from the in-progress carbonation. Google 'carbonic bite'. It fades away over time.

 

[Leon103]

Or do you have cleaner in your pipes or tap?

 

[XiRho]

30 PSI for two days and thereafter dropped to the normal pressure. I have googled the carbonic bite and hope that is the answer.

There was sanitiser in the pipes but *should* have all been flushed out prior to the pull in question.

 

[Ghillie]

Could you share the recipe please?

 

[XiRho]

4.3Kg Marris Otter,
95g Crystal

60 min mash @66C

1 hour boil

30g Challenger @ 60 min
23g EKG @ 0 min
16g Styrian Goldings @ 0 min

Safale S-04

 

[Ghillie]

Did you taste the beer when you were kegging it, uncarbonated?

Carbonic bite is an excellent suggestion. If you ever take a whiff of your keg once it's kicked (obviously not advisable because it's dangerous) that is also extremely sharp. After a few more days, the CO2 should be almost fully in solution, so you can better gauge things then. Afraid I've nothing more to add.