Effects of sunlight on bucket

[roccobrews]

During the initial fermentation my 6.5 gal buckets remain in my dark, temperature stable basement. I'll normally bring them upstairs to my living room to warm up and finish. Do I have to worry about sunlight hitting my uncovered bucket? I've personally never tasted any ill effects. Just curious on anyone's take on this.

 

[rodwha]

Mine are in the dark, but I don't see how. I think you are good.

 

[Conan]

I never see a problem. Mine are in the dining room and see sunlight daily. Kyle

 

[unionrdr]

I always cover mine with a dark tee shirt just to make sure no UV light skunks it over time. Mine are on a fermenter stand in the man cave with a southern exposer. So keeping them covered is a cheap & easy precaution.

 

[Clonefan94]

I always wrap mine in a towel. Although, my first thought in doing this was to hopefully, kind of, contain a lid blowing off if the airlock somehow got clogged. I've never really thought about the sunlight. My guess is it would be pretty tough for any UV rays to get through an opaque bucket.

 

[unionrdr]

Generally being white plastic,they do let a certain amount of light through. So they're more translucent than opaque.

 

[jlg4398]

The commercial fermenting buckets although are white do not allow any significant light or UV rays to penetrate. I ferment in this type of bucket on my kitchen counter that gets relatively low light.
If your bucket is not in direct bright light you're probably okay.

 

[roccobrews]

Found this on a science forum. Just like any other information on the internet, take it with a grain of salt. I didn't preform a controlled experiment myself with measurable, empirical results.I guess it's just a good practice to cover either which way.

"Some plastics are intrinsically pretty transparent to UV (polythene and polypropylene for example): other are not (polycarbonate and PET are opaque to most UV. The fact that most plastics contain additives makes it difficult to guess how any given bit of plastic will stop UV."

 

[unionrdr]

I rest my case...better safe than sorry.

 

[jlg4398]

Take the grain of salt.....you'll be just fine.