Light left on by carboy for 4-5 hr, need I be concerned?

[ChrisNH]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has direct experience with this.

I keep a better bottle in a water bath with a fan going in my basement in the summer. It works great but I can't cover it or I will lose the evaporation effect. Windows are covered so the basement stays dark. I am not worried about occasional lights.

However, I discovered I had left a couple of 20 watt equiv CFLs on near my carboy the other night. The light was indirect and the carboy is underwater and pretty well crusted up from fermentation, but some light was still bouncing to it for a while.

Is this going to be a concern? Have others had low intensity CFLs on their carboy for a while? Did you experience any skunking?

The water bath is a new thing for me, in the past I had my carboys tucked away so this would not happen.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[IffyG]

Can't comment on the effect of the light on the beer (though I bet it will be minimal), but if you have the carboy in a water bath you should really have a t-shirt wrapped around it to wick water up to be evaporated.

 

[makomachine]

This is a clear situation of RDWHAHB!

 

[ChrisNH]

Can't comment on the effect of the light on the beer (though I bet it will be minimal), but if you have the carboy in a water bath you should really have a t-shirt wrapped around it to wick water up to be evaporated.

I did various experiments and that is not needful. I get exactly the temp I want with the bottle in the water and a fan blowing to increase the evap of the water and thus its coolness. When fermentation slows I can turn the fan off and keep the temp pretty steady as heat generated by the yeast diminishes. YMMV, I arrived at what I needed for my basement. Mostly I am just compensating for heat generated by the fermentation.. the mass of the water off-sets that nicely. If my basement was, say, 80 rather then 70-72 in the summer (and temps up to 76 in the carboy during active fermentation) then I would need to do something else.

Chris

 

[LandoLincoln]

I did various experiments and that is not needful.

Except when you want to keep it away from light, anyways.

 

[mc_eric]

This is a clear situation of RDWHAHB!

This. Even if your beer did get skunked (I doubt it did), there's nothing you can really do about it now except to relax and kick back with some suds.

Best of luck with the beer, though I'm sure it'll be fine. If the light was directly on the carboy, and like 2 feet away from it, it MIGHT be a problem. But you said it was indirect, so it should be OK.

 

[ChrisNH]

I tapped a glass of a nice English IPA I made that has come along quite nicely...

Life is good. I am still curious. I will know in a few weeks I guess!

 

[WhineinAlbany]

I thought it was only natural light that oxidizes beer?

 

[Urban]

i think i heard its UV light that skunks beer. RDWHAHB.

 

[jiggs_casey]

I've done this by accident before. Standard incandescent (sp?) bulb, 60w maybe, just a few feet from an uncovered carboy when I went to work one morning. Just forgot to turn it off. It didn't skunk it.

Actually, I have a CFL bulb in there now. I'm sure I have done the same since... I've never noticed anything wrong...