skunky beer

So the last batch of blonde ale i brewed tastes very skunky. It fermented in primary for 1 month and secondary for a week. The fermenters sat on my tool bench in the garage were afternoon sunlight came in direct contact with them every day. Could that cause skunky taste or is it just to green still? Its been chilled and kegged for two weeks now.

 

Sun light interacts with hop oils to produce skunkyness. Please keep beer out of light.

 

You hit the nail on the head. Find some way to protect your beer from light.

 

^^This^^

I use old t-shirts. Tough luck man...find someone who likes Heineken?!?!

 

+1 you just made yourself some hinykin. No wonder I hate hinykin. Tastes like a**

 

A t-shirt can help, but UV can still penetrate if they're sitting outside. Ever get a sunburn thru a t-shirt? I definitely have.

When I use a t-shirt over my carboy it's to protect against short bursts of indoor fluorescent light. If you have sunlight streaming through a window onto the fermenters, I'd definitely try to ferment somewhere else. In addition to skunking, you could also be causing temperature swings.

If you're using glass, try fitting a cardboard box over the fermenter or putting a heavy blanket, towel or sweatshirt over it. Or just switch to plastic buckets.

 

Some skunky beers are pretty good though, Beck's & St Pauli Girl have that skunk smell, and they are great beers !!........

 

Use tin foil. The same one that you can make anti-mind reading caps.

 

+1 on the tinfoil. Or just find a way to store it under the work bench. there are threads of people that have made fermentation chambers under their benches.

 

I take a black, heavy-duty trash bag, cut one bottom corner off so that the neck of the carboy can just fit through the hole, slide the bag upside down over the carboy with the opening of the carboy poking through the hole I just cut, and secure the bag around the neck of the carboy with a rubber band...and sanitize everything.

 

Crap i was afraid of that, i have another one sitting in the same place that u need to move asap but its already been there 2 weeks.

 

That one is most likely skunked, also. My friend moved a carboy to his screened-in back porch this last winter to try to cold crash before transferring to keg. He only left it there in direct sunlight for one day, and his citra/nelson IPA tasted like a really bitter heineken.

 

I've only ever had Heine/Stella/Pauli-girls turn skunky if someone left them in the sun- and it didn't taste that way out of the keg either. I think I have a theory as to why a friend of mine says he hates Heineken and kolsch so much though...

As far as this problem goes, I dress up my carboys in my old sweaters (and am always tempted to put a pair of pants next to them and leave my hat on top...)

 

Be careful about white buckets. They don't block out very much light at all, in fact transmit it very well.

 

I believe blue light is the most damaging in terms of skunking, followed by green, followed by near UV. White polyethylene will certainly block much, much more visible light than glass, and both will transmit some long-wave (near) UV but block the shorter stuff.

 

I just also finished a blonde ale, and I know UV wasn't the problem, but it also smells skunky. Have you done Blonde ales before? because it might be part of the style. Still tastes good though

 

I always wrap my carboys in a towel and secure around the neck with a clip that I can also attach the temp probe from my Johnson Control to. Why wrap them in a freezer? I have to use an old shop light to keep the temp from going too cold in the winter.

 

i enjoy the skunk taste in Heineken and stella. i dont get as much of it in Heineken as i use to but i recently had some stellas and they were great and skunky

 

My dad was the same way - he loved the skunked beer he'd get sometimes. Used to be you'd get it fairly often in commercial beers, especially in out-of-the-way places where they didn't have cool storage. Oly that had been sitting outside in 90-degree heat for a few weeks was just what he wanted. I think it reminded him of the rougher beers they had when he was young (he was born in 1914).

 

I recently brewed my first blonde and it's got a touch of skunk to it. Fermented in a bucket in the basement.

 

UV is short-wave. Infrared is long-wave. Although really its high(UV)-low(IR) frequency of the waves.

 

I never referred to UV as long wave, rather I was mentioning the longer-wave UV region near the visible part of the spectrum. AKA near-UV. Length is all relative I suppose, like a taller short guy

 

So what ended up being the final outcome? Were your beers badly skunked?

 

Hopefully it turned out ok. Skunkiness varies along with one's preference or distain of it.

I actually deliberatly skunked bottled beer by exposing it to summer sunlight for relatively short periods of time in transparent glass bottles. I was aiming for a heiny corona thing with a frankenstien grain batch that required a mix of several adjunts. I dont have my notes i front of me but recall skunkiness set in after a few minutes.

Cheers

 

This is a great Basic Brewing episode.

It happens pretty quickly.

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=september-14-2007---skunking-beer

Cheers!

 

I like the experimentation going on here! Did the other carboy skunk? The light is def a high possibility but there could have been an infection that set in someway as well. Have you set a lot of carboys in that space and had this result bf?

I second the wrapping in a towel. it's what I do with my beers, especially if they're going to be in there for a while.

 

Yes, welcome to corona brewing! they skunk it on purpose. The clear bottles they pack it in does this and It is one of my favorite beers! I tried to skunk one but it didnt work. there is a scientific answer to your post, but im not a scientist, but atleast it isnt an infection , just a process for people that like it that way.

 

Please.

 

Get a cheap fridge and build the aquarium temp control. Two birds with one stone

 

SPF-30, Smother the carboy in sun tan lotion, then cover it in cloths and a knotted hanky for a hat, works every time...
Oh hang on thats what i do to my kids at the beach... SORRY...

Sorry to here about the skunky beer

Dan

 

I did an experiment with beer in green bottles, left a bottle of beck's out in light over night, one in light for a half hour, and kept one covered in the box. Within the half hour, you could already pick up skunky flavors, the one left out over night smelled like a cypress hill concert.

Also noticed that its not just sunlight that skunks beer, but artificial light will do it as well.

 

I read somewhere that fluorescent lights skunk beer but incandescent lights don't. What kind of lights did you use?

 

Im still tring to figure out the overnight thing, I didnt know that moonlight could skunk a beer!

 

I have noticed skunking of a good craft beer after only 15 minutes in the sun. I poured the can into a glass. Lesson here: drink canned beer from the can.

 

Old comforters work too

 

[ame]http://youtu.be/_YhpauKGgQ4[/ame]

 

I just had a beer come out skunky about two months ago. It was horrible and completely undrinkable. I let it set in the keg for about a month before I tried it again. It got better, and now its at least drinkable. I won't serve it to any of my friends (except the one who likes hiny), but its still beer...

 

Surprising as it is it, it only takes a few minute exposed to direct sunlight to skunk a beer.

Try it for yourself. Buy yourself a 24oz can of Budweiser (or you're favorite lightly hopped macro brew) and pour it into a glass. Take a good sniff and note the lack of almost all aroma (specifically hop/skunk aroma). Leave it outside on a bright summer day for about 10 minutes and take a sniff again. Skunk!

 

I see two problems:

1. Fermenters in garage means they were not climate control and you are fermenting at a fluctuating temperature.

2. Sun light contact everyday.

Solution:
Put your fermenters inside with a blow off valve (had a carboy explode in my closet) and wrap towels around it securing with a string,bungie,ziptie,etc.

 

I've got 99 skunk problems but I can't figure out the source. Removed all my bottles from potential sunlight damage source, and it's not even consistent within a single batch - ie. the first few from this crate were great, but the one I'm having tonight is rank. Refrigerating seems to make it worse?!