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Ferment in the dark?
Just had a thought? I am working on an apple cider batch. 5 gal. The recipe says to ferment it in a dark place? Should I be doing that for ALL the wines etc. that I am working?
Thanks for your time.

D

NO. I have a few dark brown demijons but I only use them for things that specifically say to ferment in the dark. Most of the fruit fermentations do not mind a bit of light. Not sure about all the others.

Red (grape at least) wines loose their colour, and white wine may brown more rapidly. for the most part it is cosmetic, though i have a niggling feeling that their is a chemical change that can occur in some boozes as well - if i come across the reference again i'll let you know

It's dark in my fermenting freezer under temp control.

yeast being a fungus does not like light.they prefer dark warm and damp.
UV can cause off flavors and can kill fungus /yeast.
watch the fluorescent lights also.

We all know that for our brew, direct sunlight is really, really bad. I'd say that indirect sunlight that is still relatively bright (for example next to a window, but not in a place where it will get direct sun), is also not that good.
But apart from that, is there much difference between normal room levels of light and complete darkness? For example just sitting in the corner of a room, maybe under a desk, not directly beneath the window but also not in complete darkness. I'd say it would be receiving a modest amount of light on the visible spectrum, but almost zero levels of UV, and it would make little difference to put it in complete darkness. Correct me if I'm wrong.

K.

I keep mine out on the back porch and don't seem to have a problem (related to sunlight) ......

Thank you all for the input!

I keep a few hoodies or old sweatshirts and just put those over the buckets/bottles. Anything dark or thick will do the job just fine. Also a black plastic trash bag with a hole just big enough for the air lock is wonderful. Use a zip tie/painters tape/bungie to keep it locked around the bottle neck.

+1 on Durace's comment. I have a cellar so everything is out of the light, but a few houses ago I just kept all my carboys in old shirts. Beer gets light-struck & skunky really quick (unless your carboys are brown glass), and anything subject to long aging like wine will also be damaged by UV exposure. I don't think it's as much of a problem for active ferments.

With ciders and wines, light isn't really an issue.

With beer (drinking beer not distilling beer) it is because of the hops.

Light interacts with isomerized alpha acids, which are produced when hops are boiled.