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Sun light
So I made a rookie mistake. I'm making an IPA brewed with honey that called for dry hopping. I racked the beer into my secondary which is a glass carboy and placed it into my living room that get's light traffic. Unfortunately I placed it right by a window without covering it with a bag. It was NYE and I'm kicking myself. That went on four days before I remembered. "Oh, that can't be good" and now it's got a bag over it blocking the light. This is a west facing window that has another house right next to us and the slits to the blinds were closed the whole time. Have I just wasted $60 or is there a chance I might be ok? I realize I can just taste it here in a bit and know for sure but I'm hoping someone can calm me down or at least break the inevitable bad news to me.
Did light ever actually hit it? If so then yeah you're screwed. Wow, imagine just how skunky an IPA could get! For your sake I hope its ok, but I'm kind of interested in just how skunky that hoppy of a beer could get. Not interested enough to try it myself though.
another reason why buckets are better than bottles, Ha ha. I've often wondered how true this light struck thing is, or if light can actually skunk your beer if it's fermenting? I know alot of people do their starters in clear bottles, or gallon jugs, and I can't imagine people would continue to do it if it continual ruined the yeast.
I'm sure light does affect beer adversley, but I also know that some beers like Corona will purposly expose their beer to light to get that export/import taste. I know New Castle uses clear bottles, but damn if that isn't one tasty beer. So, i'd wait and see, i'm sure it's fine. Come to think of it, i've never heard of a beer being ruined during fermentation being light struck.
I think it could go either way. But you'll definitely know if there's a problem. You've done us all a great service with your accidental experiment!
I'm gonna go with, "it's probably fine" but you should definitely taste a sample and see if you can detect an issue, then report back to us
bruguru, about the starters in clear bottles, isn't it the light reacting with the hop oils that causes the skunking? Most people don't put hops in their starters, so that wouldn't be an issue.
but if that is true, and IPA's usually have lots of hops, there's going to be lots of hop oils for the sunlight to react with, so my guess is he just made a batch of Heineken IPA. I'm thinking it's going to get that same taste Heineken and all those other European Lagers have. Can't say for sure if the beer will be horrible, but it won't be what he was originally shooting for. Hopefully it still comes out drinkable.
Ha ha, i'm sure it's fine. I don't put hops in my starters but I used to. I was refering to the effect on fermenting beer like he has here. I've never heard of a batch spoiling mid fermentation because it was light struck. We don't even know how much light hit the Carboy. Plus i'm not buying it. Ive had crappy import beer that was obviously skunked, but for years I thought that every Heni that I got was skunked.
I've never had a homebrew from anyone that was light struck. I've never even heard of a homebrewer ruining a batch because of exposure to light.
Pinion please don't throw out your batch, i'm sure it's fine.
woah woah woah! Who said anything about throwing out the batch?! 
I"ll keg it and pressurize and unles sit's just awful I'll drink it. I used to drink Kronenburg all the time. Get one of them and open it up and smell it. Straight up smells like a skunks behind. But I loved them so I'm sure I can take it. We'll see. I'll update this thread soon with my results.
Andrew: It was right in front of a window so direct rays from the sun didn't hit it because there were blinds there but sunlight still got through.
From what I know it's a certain band of light that comes from the suns rays that reacts with the oils in the hops that skunks the beer fairly quickly. I was dry hopping so there is a bag of hop pellets just floating around the top. That's the other problem too, I have quite a bit of head space so I won't know if it's skunked from sunlight or oxidization. Ah well, live and learn.
Direct sunlight skunks beer because of hops. That's the only skunking that happens. Oxidation is completely unrelated.
It's a particular wavelength of light that gets the hops, but I'm not sure which. There was a BYO article recently that I had a hard time interpreting the data. There wasn't a solid conclusion (other than "avoid light"), just a few vague graphs, but you might get something out of it if you can find it.
Just pull the bung out and smell it. That will give you your answer as to whether it's skunked or not.
Wait a minute, that's probably the funniest advice I've given about beer. Either way, that's what you should do. Cheers!
how's the beer?
Oh man thanks. I totally forgot! I kegged it about a week and a half ago and hav ebene drinking it. It tastes pretty good although there's a grapefruit flavor in there I'm not sure how that got there. Not exactly the taste I expected but of course since it's a kit I have no idea what it should be tasting like. All I can say is it tastes good and I've been drinking it. I'll probably do this kit again and apply some of the things I learned. There's certainly no skunking smell or taste to it but like I said about the grapefruit there may be some other off flavors. So i guess I was ok but I certainly won't be sticking beer near that window again. I've got a place cleaned out in the closet for my primary and secondary now.
Glad its worked out for you.
The grapefruit thing is from the hops man! Hops like cascade, centennial, citra, columbus; you can expect some grapefruit. If your kit was for a standard start up IPA like most shops sell grape fruit is right on the money.
Or summits. A pineapple grapefruit bomb. Love em!!
They used a blend of Citra, Columbus, and Amarillo. So I guess that's why. I've just never had an IPA taste so fruity I used .75 oz at the beggining and 15 minutes in, .50 oz at 45 mins. Then I saw I had .25 extra that weren't in the instructions so I just threw that in after I put it in the fermenter. Then after fermentation I dry hopped with a full ounce of that blend for a week in the secondary, that sat in front of a window
Glad it turned out well for you.
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