Metallic Taste

[lewis1981]

I have kegged my Pendle Witches Brew two weeks ago and have just tasted it and there seems to be a metallic after taste. This brew is in a corny is this the problem and do others find this. It tastes similar to beer out of a can. I have two cornies in total and was looking to buy some more but this has put me off at the moment, what do you all think is the problem?

[mysterio]

I had this once and I never figured out what it was. It was a completely isolated case. It was nothing to do with the cornie itself, I believe, because I'd used the kegs many times before and since and they were fine.

Sorry that's a bit of a useless answer. The only thing that occurs to me is that maybe you removed the oxide layer from any stainless that you used and allowed iron into the beer/wort. But really I have no idea. Hopefully someone can help.

[Oscar Brewer]

Looking at the recipe for your brew which I'm assuming is taken from GW's new book I think it may be the considerable amount of white sugar used. I tasted a beer from a brewer recently that also had a metallic tang which I'd never come across before with his beers. He told me later that he'd used 400g of cane sugar as an adjunct as an alternative from his usual all malt beers. I'd perhaps suggest you replace some of the sugar with pale malt or use invert, or a partially inverted sugar such as golden syrup. Commercial brewers who use cane sugar almost always use it in an invert form for this reason. As for Corny kegs, I've been using them for ten years now with no trace of metallic taints.