Blind Curiosity

Here is a question that I am sure has come up before...

If light can damage the flavor of the hops during the fermentation stage, why do we ferment in clear glass carboys and translucent white buckets?

Well, we usually cover up our glass carboys to protect them from the light. I've never had an issue with buckets, it seems that not enough light makes their way through to have an impact. I ferment in the basement where it's usually pretty dark, regardless.

It's only UV component of light which makes flavor impact.

I guess I never thought of it that way. I also ferment in my basement where there is very little light, so it's not an issue for me regardless.

I thought the same thing when I started as well. I don't think it matters too much though, even if fermentation were in a UV protected container and was not stored in a dark area anyway, the light would likely raise the temp and cause problems.

regardless, its sitting in a dark place

I wouldn't call the plastic buckets translucent either. they're basically opaque.

UV light is the source of skunking. I have fluorscent bulbs, 4x40watts, in my brew room. none of my beer is skunked, and i do all secondary and keg racking in that room.

The UV from direct sunlight is over a thousand times as intense as typical florescent lighting.

I always keep a dark shirt over my carboys just in case. It also comes in handy just in case you need to clean up an unexpected blow off.

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As a new brewer still, I thought people wanted clear fermentation vessels to observe the fermentation process, see the krausen form, see the trub at the bottom, etc, which only clear vessels allow. Of course this comes with the risk of light exposure, so you just cover them up when not looking inside -- easy enough. My impression is that a few minutes of light exposure per fermentation won't affect the beer, but I don't know this for sure either way.

One benefit of clear carboys is being able to easily see the crusty residue left over from fermentation. Cleaning a brown glass carboy would be more difficult.