Is fluorescent light going to skunk my beer?

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I used to think yes.

Now, I am not so sure anymore. A typical flourescent bulb does emit UVA & UVB spectrums of light but they also follow a sort of inverse square law in that their intensity drops signifigantly over distance.

A high powered linear tube for a reptile cage has a penetration depth of 20" max and that is a bulb designed to maximize UVA & UVB output. Toss things like screens and diffusers in the path of the light and the the intensity of the spectrum is damned near killed. IIRC, UVA&UVB cannot pass through plastic/glass very well at the levels that linear tubes produce.

No matter what, it doesn;t hurt to wrapo a towel or t-shirt over it to be safe.
 
Yes, flourescent light can, and does, skunk beer all the time. Keep bottles and your carboy protected from UV light.
 
Yes, flourescent light can, and does, skunk beer all the time. Keep bottles and your carboy protected from UV light.

In teh context of a clear glass carboy;

http://hw.libsyn.com/p/8/d/d/8dde0d6c5d348121/bbrskunking.pdf?sid=4d676d2ad2b804fe86aa2bedb01f6020&l_sid=18257&l_eid=&l_mid=1511404

Interesting to note comparisons between standard tungsten and flourescent. It is often cited that any wavelength lower than 520nm has photochemical effcts on beer. And while tungsten does not present the same spikes in intensity as flourescent, it does however cover a broader spectrum of the >520nm range.

The game changes in the longneck bottle.

Even more interesting that a "scientific study" does not reference distance to source.
 
I left a little bit of beer in a clear glass in my kitchen with fluorescent lighting. After an hour it smelled and tasted very skunked. It doesn't happen near as fast as it does with sunlight, but it does happen.
 
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