The curse of Green and clear bottles

[MrBulldogg]

Actually, it's UV light that causes skunkiness...light from the sun or flourescent light fixtures. Amber bottles block UV, so they don't skunk...green, blue, or clear bottles let UV thru.

I knew to keep the brews out of the sun, but this thing about flourescent light is good to know. What about regular lightbulbs and the like? Reason I ask is I use green bottles and the brew gets exposed to light during the bottling process. As a newbie, this takes a while so it's good to know whether it'll help to keep the flourescent kitchen light off and use a plain lightbulb light instead.

 

[El Pistolero]

What about regular lightbulbs and the like?

Incandescent bulbs are OK...very little blue or UV coming from those. As to turning the kitchen light off during bottling tho...personally I just cover the bottles with a dish towel after they're capped. I guess mine might be exposed to the flourescents for 5 minutes or so, but I don't worry about that too much.

 

[Glibbidy]

Noticed yuengling started offering cans fairly recently.. I'm still trained to stay away from can's but I may try it just to see how the can's compare to the bottles. For what it's worth I do try to buy a 12 pack so that the light exposure is minimized by the box. What really pisses me off is those aholes at yuengling use brown bottles for their porter and black and tan and they put their lager in !@%$*&# green bottles!

yuengling cans have been around for several years, Specifically the black & tan, and the premium beer.
I don't know if they still market their returnables anymore. Back when I was in college you could buy a case of yuengling returnable 16oz bottles for under 10.00 (including the deposit). It would be worth it to look for these returnables to use for bottling, as they are virtually indestructible, and brown in color.

 

[casebrew]

Actually you've got it reversed...the verticle scale on that graph is optical density, not "light transmitted". From the graph, the amber bottles transmit almost no light in the high UV range, and very little in the blue and near visible UV range

Read the scale however you like, but all the bottles have the same effect on UV light, they block it. SOoo, no advantage to brown bottles as far as UV goes. But we do know that brown bottles do prevent skunking. And we know that brown bottles have different blue light transmission characteristics than clear bottles. Could skunkiness be caused by blue light, do you think?

Beer IS susceptible to UV light, but any color glass, even clear, blocks it. But blue light also skunks beer. Amber glass blocks blue light, clear and green do not. SOoo, if the beer in your clear bottle got skunky, it was the blue light that did it. NOT the UV, that can't get through the clear glass.

 

[Lost]

yuengling cans have been around for several years, Specifically the black & tan, and the premium beer.
I don't know if they still market their returnables anymore. Back when I was in college you could buy a case of yuengling returnable 16oz bottles for under 10.00 (including the deposit). It would be worth it to look for these returnables to use for bottling, as they are virtually indestructible, and brown in color.

Keep in mind I'm down here in FL, I think the only product we receive is whatever comes from the Tampa plant. I've never seen any 16 oz pop tops or anything over 12 oz from yuengling but I'll have to keep my eyes open. I think we just get very limited product availability down here either b/c the plant doesn't make it or b/c the brand is relatively new so they stick to a few "blue chip" beers (i.e. the lager, lite beer, and blk and tan). I first saw the porter a year or two back and, while still hard to find, it is showing up more often at the liquor stores and even at Publix.

 

[UNOmar]

I actually did a small test on my last brew. When I bottled I filled 2 grolsh green bottles. One conditioned in my living room while the other conditioned with the rest in the closet. My living room does not have any flourescent lights, but the blinds are nearly alway open so the mid-afternoon to evening light shone in quite readily. Perhaps I should have conducted the test on the east side of my house, but I failed to notice a difference in taste. I thought for sure that 2.5 weeks in occassional sunlight would skunk it, but no dice. And for the record the beer was 15 HCU (~10 SRM) so not super dark.
Has anyone else done any testing like this with different results?

 

[casebrew]

I actually did a small test on my last brew. When I bottled I filled 2 grolsh green bottles. One conditioned in my living room while the other conditioned with the rest in the closet. My living room does not have any flourescent lights, but the blinds are nearly alway open so the mid-afternoon to evening light shone in quite readily. Perhaps I should have conducted the test on the east side of my house, but I failed to notice a difference in taste. I thought for sure that 2.5 weeks in occassional sunlight would skunk it, but no dice. And for the record the beer was 15 HCU (~10 SRM) so not super dark.
Has anyone else done any testing like this with different results?

One fella said he put a bottle on his windowsill in the direct sun. Tried it after 15 minutes, slight skunk. Another few minutes made it nasty. Sheer drapes, dirty windows, or window screens could make a big difference in light transmision.

 

[scorp13]

all glass blocks UV. Testing in the house won't work because sunlight is already filtered by the windows and second your bottle. I design fire protection systems. I designed the first foam-water systems for the B1 Bombers in Korea. We utilize UV and IR detectors for actuation of the systems. UV detectors require a quartz lens because glass blocks the UV. You can buy light bulbs in every wavelength. Beer has a shelf life. Many things can make the process go bad. It could be water deposits from the sterilization of your bottles that could have caused a problem. The water from your tap is poisoned water. Just not poisonous enough to kill you. It does kill bacteria and algae. you can try and filter it but it is far easier to buy distilled for serialization and the whole process. Everyone always says distilled water tastes flat. It has no taste it is oxygen and hydrogen and nothing else. I want to taste my beer and not the water. You need bacteria for this process so why kill it with the water. sunlight and UV light in particular is not good for beer. So don't store it in the backyard. I don't know how you guys do it but, I store it in a cooler in the dark and drink it. The brewing process can be done in the dark too. How much light are you exposing your beer to and why? As for putting it on a windowsill in direct sunlight is basically cooking the beer and ending its shelf life. I bet the same thing would happen to milk.