Hop Skunk Experiment...

i have a pint of a very well hopped cali-common sitting on my window sill in bright sunlight. I want to see how long it takes to get 'skunked'. ive read that it can take as little as 10 min. So far its been there for 17 min. and it still smells fine....ill keep you updated...

Nice serve Ivan.

ok after 30 min. i detected a slight skunk odor but wasnt sure...now its been 40 min...and its definitely skunky...

that was faster than i thought it would take, and i imagine if it were in a closed bottle the effects would be even more dramatic.

im gonna leave it to see how bad it gets.

Really? That fast? Interesting.

I'll be honest...I'm lazy about hiding my beers from light sometimes. Usually I try to cover up the carboys, but not always. I've honestly never noticed a skunky taste at all like you do in mishandled commercial beer. I wonder if the larger volume allows more sloppiness.

As I said, I do try to cover them up, because that's really what you want to do. Sunlight is the destroyer of all things

I dunno, letting beer spoil isn't in any of my furure plans.

Ivan if you really want to help the brotherhood you need to do some serious experimenting. When I lived in Hawaii, most of my brewing activities happened in the garage that faced West. Afternoon sunlight skunked a beer in a clear glass in less than 5 minutes. It was a low gravity lawnmower beer with Cascade hops. Your Cali Common probably protected the hops a little by itself. Plus unless you are on a rock in the Pacific Ocean you don't get the same kind of sun. I'm thinking different hops, different plato beers, different locations will get different results. Way to take on for the team though...

I have had the same experience. I pour a beer and go out to work around the yard, the sun is out and wham, skunky beer. I have found a solution that is 100% effective. Chug your beer.

yeah it was pretty casual for an experiment...what happened was i poured a beer and actually forgot to drink it, so when i got up the next day instead of tossing it i put it in my window which faces south-west. The sun was really bright that day, so i just wanted to see how long it would take...

i remember when i was like 13 yrs. old i stole a case of heinekens from somewhere and i stashed them in the woods behind my house, a week later me and my friend went to drink them and oh boy were they skunked!

My question is, when are hops susceptible to this? They grow on the vine in bright sunlight, but is it as soon as there picked their vulnerable? or after they have been boiled?

Maybe it's the iso-alpha acids produced by breaking down alpha acids in the boil that can go skunky rather than the alpha acids themselves? Good question...

i remeber reading something about how certain wavelengths of light make a certain molecule (atom?)in hops vibrate, and eventually 'break' off and combine with another molecule (atom?) in beer which produces the same molecule that the actual skunk produces...Crazy...

Brewpastor said:

I have had the same experience. I pour a beer and go out to work around the yard, the sun is out and wham, skunky beer. I have found a solution that is 100% effective. Chug your beer.

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Now your talking

Skunky or cat-musk aromas in beer are caused by photochemical reactions of the isomerized hop compounds. The wavelengths of light that cause the skunky smell are the blue wavelengths and the ultraviolet. Brown glass bottles effectively screen out these wavelengths, but green bottles do not. Skunkiness will result in beers if the beer is left in direct sunlight or stored under fluorescent lights as in supermarkets.

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The key word is isomerized. This is the process the alpha acids go through during the boil. Fresh hops don't skunk, but they do oxidize. Leaving a glass of ale out in direct sunlight can skunk it in 15 minutes. One of the reasons it is so fast, is the skunk scent is detectable in the parts per billion range.