I am new to kegging. I recently purchased a brand new keg. I disassembled everything and soaked it in PBW all day. I then scrubbed everything with a brush and rinsed SEVERAL times. After re-assembling I filled the keg part way with water, hooked up the gas and dispensed the water through a picnic tap. It had such as strong chemical/metallic taste to it that I immediately spit it out. I thought maybe I had not rinsed thoroughly enough so I rinsed a couple more times and tried again. The water still had a very strong chemical taste to it. Through trial and error I narrowed it down to a 2' piece of tubing and an aeration stone. If I take those out trying dispensing water it tastes fine. If I put them back it has a strong chemical taste again. To rule out the tubing I cut another piece and used it as a straw to drink water and it tasted fine. So it must be the aeration stone right? Why would it make regular water absolutely undrinkable? It was brand new and I boiled it according to the instructions.
Aeration stone in keg? Step 1. Sanitize keg. ( Without the stone. ) 2. Fill the keg with auto siphon. 3. Purge keg with CO2. 4. pressurize keg. Good luck!
Not sure why/how you are using your stone in a keg setup. One thing I would be careful about is exposing your metal aeration stone to cleaning chemicals, e.g., caustic keg line cleansers, acids. If they don't get well rinsed from the stone you might get start to dissolve the stone. But maybe this has nothing to do with your issue.
Sounds like there's some sort of infection going on in your stone. Oh, and in case nobody has asked... Why do you have an aeration stone in your keg setup? If you are trying to bubble CO2 in an attempt to carbonate faster, my advice would be don't bother. There are better ways to expedite carbonation if that's what you want.
