LED bulbs in my brewing area

[Boz]

Is it OK to use LED bulbs in the brewing area or will they skunk the beer?

 

[DrunkleJon]

Skunking is caused by I believe it is Riboflavin interacting with/forming sulfer compounds when exposed to UV light. Most residential LED bulbs give off almost no UV light so the threat of skunking is low. You should be safe. Just avoid CFL and the like.

 

[TwistedHops]

Skunking, at least what I read in brewing papers, is caused by light reacting with the iso alpha acids and rearranging them into less bitter, more off flavored compounds. Any light can do this, but lower wavelengths (especially UV) have higher energy. If the beer is warm, or worse hot, these reactions can occur faster.

If you're using amber bottles, kegs, and buckets, you're largely fine. If you're using a carboy, you should wrap it in a towel or blanket, or just keep lights off of it. Minimize any light source and you'll be fine.

Lastly, LED bulbs emit typically a very small range of wavelengths, but are very intense light especially right next to the bulb. I am not a physics nut, but i believe this is the inverse square law for light. The father away the light source, the less intense the light is. So, If you leave the LEDs on and right next to your beer in a carboy, hell ya it'll skunk. But if you're only using the LEDs as a light source for your brew room to check on the beer/brew and it's ceiling height you're fine.

Sorry, long answer for that but, Cheers!

 

[TwistedHops]

Also, here's a few references in case anyone cares:
Scientific: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-40422000000100019
BYO: https://byo.com/mead/item/2263-lightstrike-advanced-brewing

 

[Homercidal]

Wavelengths of less than 500 nm (approx.) are the cause of skunking. It's a fairly narrow band, but common in blue sunlight and florescent lighting. LEDs can come in a variety of wavelengths so you'll have to research what wavelengths your lights emit before knowing if there could be a problem.

In any case, I highly recommend you treat ANY light as a potential cause of skunking and cover that beer. It's so easy to do.

Also, note that skunking only happens to fermented beer with hops. The sunlight cleaves the hop compounds in two. One of those halves becomes a -thiol, which is almost exactly the same as the compound in skunk spray.

 

[ZebulonBrewer]

(Still need to read the BYO article)

White LED's are made of blue, red, and green LED's. The strongest one is typically the blue LED, which is usually around 470nm. That's the one you need to worry about. If beer can be skunked at ~470nm, it could happen with white LED's.

Now to read that article.

 

[Boz]

Thank you all for your input. It is a great help.