UV light

AzAdrian · 11-07-2007, 02:24 AM

Has anyone tried UV light as their sanitizer? At A.S.U. I use a UV room all the time and it got me thinking. I suppose I could build a box or room set up for this.

The only concern I have is complete exposure, I'm sure there would be spots where the wavelength couldn't hit the cell walls. However, I thought a complete lining of mirrors or high gloss metal would work.

It would take a day or two to set up but after it's complete it would be virtually maintenance free. Just put all your equipment in there and leave it, it comes out sterilized.

Has anyone tried this, or anything like this?

**olllllo** · 11-07-2007, 02:59 AM

Williams Brewing sells one.

Iordz · 11-07-2007, 03:16 AM

Strile? I don't know about that, I really don't think you can sterilize with UV light.

Beerrific · 11-07-2007, 03:24 AM

UV light will sterilize. But, it has to be a direct path, nothing can be in the shadows and the light intensity decreases as a square of the distance so there is only a certain range that a given bulb will work for.

**olllllo** · 11-07-2007, 03:32 AM

Here is the linky:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/eliminate-germs-bacteria-wild-yeast-light-16186/

Iordz · 11-07-2007, 03:52 AM

Wow, that was interesting. Thanks, Beerrific and ollllllo!

AzAdrian · 11-07-2007, 04:05 AM

UV light is one of the best sterilizers there is fyi. We use it in the microbiology lab.

If I'm exceedingly bored I may try something like this out...dependent on the swmbo of course.

I just checked out that link, it's very much an elementary version of what I was thinking of. However, it's good to see there is something out there, so I might not have as hard a time building as I thought. I'll try to steal some ideas from the lab and see what I can come up with.

**olllllo** · 11-07-2007, 04:15 AM

The biggest chore in sanitation is cleaning. No rinse products such as Star San and Iodpohor make the final phase of sanitation pretty easy to do.

It would be nice, however, to poke a light stick into the mouth of a bottle or carboy and be done with it.