How much light is bad?

[Teufelhunde]

I ferment my 6.5 gallon buckets in a mini-fridge with an external controller. I have found that I need to keep more than one batch going at a time. I will be moving the bucket to a shelf once the primary fermentation is done to allow for some conditioning and clearing. The fridge and the shelf are in a spare bedroom. The blinds are closed and the room gets no direct sunlight, but does get some indirect light.

My question is this.....is a little bit of indirect sunlight shining through the opaque but somewhat translucent sidewall of the bucket going to hurt the beer? Or am I overthinking this?

YMMV

Lon

 

[lowtones84]

I ferment my 6.5 gallon buckets in a mini-fridge with an external controller. I have found that I need to keep more than one batch going at a time. I will be moving the bucket to a shelf once the primary fermentation is done to allow for some conditioning and clearing. The fridge and the shelf are in a spare bedroom. The blinds are closed and the room gets no direct sunlight, but does get some indirect light.

My question is this.....is a little bit of indirect sunlight shining through the opaque but somewhat translucent sidewall of the bucket going to hurt the beer? Or am I overthinking this?

YMMV

Lon

In my opinion you will absolutely be fine in a bucket with indirect light. If you want to be even more careful, get some dark cloth over the bucket. Old, too big t-shirts or other things like that work well.

 

[Robert65]

Ultraviolet light will "skunk" beer very quickly -- even in minutes in some cases. So you should avoid exposure to both sunlight and artificial light that might include UV, like fluorescent. It is probably simplest, if you have to put a translucent fermentor in a place where light can get to it, to cover it up in black plastic garbage bags.

 

[Harleybrew32]

dark old shirt or a black garbage bag will do the trick, I used to use a old sweat jacket.

 

[jtrux]

Aluminum foil would block all light. You could wrap it around the outside of the bucket and put some on top

 

[Amadeo38]

Aluminum foil would block all light. You could wrap it around the outside of the bucket and put some on top

Bonus: it also blocks alien satellites and government surveillance from influencing your beer.

 

[rlmiller]

As stated above, error on the side of caution. I stopped into a charity/thrift shop and picked up a half dozen or so pillow cases. Cut a notch out of the closed end and they slide right over my carboys allowing me access to the airlock. Should work for buckets too.

 

[Saunassa]

Even when mine are in a dark corner of the laundry room I use a heavy black T-shirt or sweatshirt to cover the fermenters.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I have found that I need to keep more than one batch going at a time.

How long are you keeping batches in the fermenter? You should be able to turn around ales in 7 days or less, possibly with some minor process adjustments.

 

[Teufelhunde]

How long are you keeping batches in the fermenter? You should be able to turn around ales in 7 days or less, possibly with some minor process adjustments.

I want to be able to allow for dry hopping as well, so two weeks or so.......

 

[RPh_Guy]

The flavor from dry hops is extracted in 2 days, and fermentation for most ales can complete in 3-5 days.