Light?

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shadygrove96

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so...not sure if i made a big mistake here or just worrying about nothing.

transfered my beer to secondary and let it sit a couple of weeks. brought it out into the open with all intentions of bottleing... long story short it has been sitting out in a relitively well lit space for a couple of weeks now. it has not been sitting in direct sunlight or anything, but enough ambient light to make me worry. i have always heard that light can severly taint the final product, should i worry?

temp and everything has been consistant, the light is my only real concern...
 
You're fine.

Direct sunlight or "real" direct and extended florescent light will skunk your beer. Normal daylight won't hurt.

Oh...and congratulations on your 10th post since August. :D

What..have you been taking lessons from Revvy or something?
 
Okay I have to ask...has anyone really skunked a batch or clear bottle of brew by exposing it to too much sunlight?

I have been hearing about the "danger" of clear bottles forever. Two of my top three commercial beers are Newcastle and Corona (the other is Guinness) and both come in clear bottles. I've been drinking them for years and I can not ever remember drinking a skunked beer due to sunlight. How much sunlight does it really take to skunk a beer in a clear bottle?
 
i skunked a few beers the other day for the old lady(she digs corona). it took about 5 min of direct sunlight in clear bottles.
 
Okay I have to ask...has anyone really skunked a batch or clear bottle of brew by exposing it to too much sunlight?

I have been hearing about the "danger" of clear bottles forever. Two of my top three commercial beers are Newcastle and Corona (the other is Guinness) and both come in clear bottles. I've been drinking them for years and I can not ever remember drinking a skunked beer due to sunlight. How much sunlight does it really take to skunk a beer in a clear bottle?

It takes about 20 minutes in full sunlight to skunk a beer that's in clear glass.

It's almost impossible to find a non-skunked Corona, IME. Many homebrew clone recipes intentionally bottle them in clear glass and set them in the sun for a while to make them taste like the real thing.

Personally, I really like bottled Pilsner Urquell (which is also almost always skunked in the US) and the un-skunked stuff on tap doesn't have that "crisp, bitter" taste that I like in it.
 
i thought it had to do more with temp change over time. like if the beer is stored improperly in shipping and goes from refrigeration to hot trucks too many times....i sit on my deck and drink beer ALL the time and never noticed a flavor change ??? dont get me wrong, i am sure direct sunlight is bad for any brew in its young stages, and i dont store any beer no matter what color the bottle in the sunlight. but have one skunk while im drinking it ?:confused:
 
Okay I have to ask...has anyone really skunked a batch or clear bottle of brew by exposing it to too much sunlight?

Yep.

Dad's favorite beers are those slightly skunky beers like St. Pauli Girl, Heineken, etc...

Weeks before he comes to town I'll brew a basic american ale...less the late hop additions...and set a few dozen bottles of the finished product out in the sun for 30-40 minutes.

He loves them.

skunked_2.jpg
 
i thought it had to do more with temp change over time. like if the beer is stored improperly in shipping and goes from refrigeration to hot trucks too many times

Nope. Skunking is entirely a factor of light.

Listen to:
Basic Brewing™ : Home Brewing Beer Podcast and DVD - Basic Brewing Radio™ 2008
April 10, 2008 "The Science of Skunking" if you want the science.

It's really not subtle. Next time you brew a pale ale (or something else with a reasonable but not overpowering hops level), pour two glasses (clear glass!) and put one outside in the shade and one in strong, direct sunlight for 20 minutes, then taste them both side-by-side.
 
Nope. Skunking is entirely a factor of light.

Listen to:
Basic Brewing™ : Home Brewing Beer Podcast and DVD - Basic Brewing Radio™ 2008
April 10, 2008 "The Science of Skunking" if you want the science.

It's really not subtle. Next time you brew a pale ale (or something else with a reasonable but not overpowering hops level), pour two glasses (clear glass!) and put one outside in the shade and one in strong, direct sunlight for 20 minutes, then taste them both side-by-side.



well there is no doubt i will give that a try ! maybe i am guilty of "numbing" the buds with too many beers !:drunk:
 
while i do enjoy a heineken from time to time, skunking is not the affect i would like with the red ale i am discussing here. so thankfully it has not been sitting in any direct light.

on a seperate note, has anybody been to amsterdam and had a heineken there? i wont venture as far as saying its completely different, but there is a considerable ammount of difference in taste, namely less of a skunk factor.
 
I've never been to Amsterdam, yet. But, I do put a black garbage bag over my primaries and secondaries all the time. That's both the plastic pails and the glass carboys.
 
yeah, i will definitely be doing things different on my next batch. I am going to try to control things a little more as far as light and temp. just to avoid any doubt in my own mind. learn as you go right?
 
I finally got a return text message from my son who was in Amsterdam last fall. I asked him about the taste of Heineken. His response was: "It tasted less like skunk urine"
 
Apparently it doesn't take as much light exposure as I thought to skunk beer. According to this article, a highly hopped beer can get skunked in as little as 30 seconds of sunlight. And yes, even normal room light will cause it.

Tom
 
Taste a bottle of Heineken next to a mini-keg can. The can keeps the sun out. I've never tried it, but it should work. I HAVE had a Heiney in the big mini-keg and liked it much more than the stuff out of the green bottle.

I didn't know that it only takes that much direct sunlight to skunk a beer! I'll have to be careful next time.
 
Taste a bottle of Heineken next to a mini-keg can. The can keeps the sun out. I've never tried it, but it should work. I HAVE had a Heiney in the big mini-keg and liked it much more than the stuff out of the green bottle.

I didn't know that it only takes that much direct sunlight to skunk a beer! I'll have to be careful next time.

I've had them each side by side and there was no noiceable difference.
A lot of the commercial breweries pre-skunk thier canned product to "preserve" the glass bottle taste...
 
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