Hi guys. I brewed a 7 gallon batch of Belgian Dubbel. I fermented 5 gallons with Wyeast Flanders Golden Ale. I fermented 2 gallons with Wyeast Brett C. The 5 gallon Dubbel tasted great at Bottling. The Brett version tasted of chlorophenol. I am letting it age, will that go away?
I think it may age put very different from what you have now but hard to say for sure.
That’s what I’m hoping. It fermented solely with Brett B (The Brett C in the subject line is wrong), and it fermented out in 2 weeks. I let it sit for another week before blending it with a Sacch only Belgian. I plan on letting it sit for several months, hoping to achieve a solid Brett B flavor.
You don’t say how long the beer has been subjected to brett but sometimes brett beers can taste pretty foul at a young age. There can be lots of unpleasant phenolics that will age out. However, most brett strains you find labeled “brett b” or “brett brux” tend to be more phenolic than other strains so you’ll never see a brett b beer without any phenolic character.
Your mention of chlorophenols is a different issue. Chlorophenols are very medicinal, sort of like if you’ve ever tasted unflavored medicine, mixed with what reminds me of the aroma (and what I imagine to be the taste) of floor cleaners. Chlorophenols are not caused by brett but by chlorine in the water. If you used chlorinated water then it is possible that the existing chlorophenols are becoming more obvious due to the phenols brett is creating. Chlorophenols will not go away. I’m pretty sure, although not positive, that brett cannot do anything pleasant with chlorophenols. However, if you did not use chlorinated water or clean your equipment with bleach then there should not be any chlorophenols.
Yeah, it had only been exposed to Brett for 3 weeks.
As far as the chlorophenols, go, it very well could have been a different phenolic combination. I had a chlorophenol problem in my beers years ago, than I started using a charcoal filter and haven’t had the problem since. My memory just went back to that experience when I tried this beer, but it might have been something different.