Right now I have my first brew bottled so this is a question about my next soon to be brew.
A buddy and I decided to home brew together. His house is no issue. We were hoping to switch brew sites every other brew to keep wives happy.
I do not have an a available closet or a 100% dark place to but beer for fermentation. Can I cover with a blanket to keep out of sunlight?
Thanks in advance
My first few batches I used a cardboard box with a small hole cut out in the top for the airlock to stick out, just because I liked watching it bubble. Blanket is probably fine, but remember that fermentation produces heat and blankets insulate. Pay attention to the ambient temp in your house, fermenting to hot can mess up your brew depending on the style.
Thanks. We try to keep around 72
That depends on what you are brewing… A rather clean flavored ale, I’d suggest about 63… look up a swamp cooler… The Belgium fun stuff… Yes warm helps to exhibit banana/clove and a few other desirable esters…
Sneezles61
Irish Ale is next
Well so an English variant of yeast… I’d ferment in the mid 60’s…
Sneezles61
Is that warm? Instructions said warm and dark place. I’ve read a lot that say 65-75 degrees. Only 2nd brew too so I’m trying to learn everything.
I like 63… It’ll put of some heat as it ferments and get you up to 65 easily.
Sneezles61
You don’t have to keep your buckets in complete darkness. Keeping your buckets away from a window in as dark a space a you can provide will be enough. Unless you live in a greenhouse or the top of a light house.
I’ve never had a batch get skunked from light. However, when if I’m batch aging for long periods of time I will outfit my carboys with a black T-shirt.
Agree with @squeegeethree no reason to cover buckets, and with @sneezles61 regarding temp control. Most ale yeasts are going to finish cleaner in the low to mid 60s. That’s pretty well agreed upon process in the entire homebrew community. Homebrew supplier instructions are notoriously bad so you’d do better to listen to experienced brewers.
Boom! What @dannyboy58 said. I always used the box that the better bottles came in when I used those for fermenting. Definitely look up the swamp cooler as @sneezles61 mentioned. That’s a decent and cheap way to help you control temp for sure. Keep in mind that keeping the ambient temp at 72 means the temp inside bucket will be 6-8 degrees warmer during active fermentation.
Also keep in mind that “cleaner” is a preference not a rule. Experimentation will lead you to know your yeasts and how to use them. But if your are like me you will need to record your data and results.
Thanks guys! Now I’m a little worried about what I have in bottles…
Be like Charlie RDWHAHB!
I just put a black garbage bag over my carboy when I do red wine since I do that at ambiet temperature in the cellar
I hope the heavy contractor bags… Those home owner ones you can still read a book through them… 
Sneezles61
UV radiation follows the Inverse-Square Law. With your windows blocking 10-20% of UV radiation and your bucket blocking 80% more light (I’m being generous to the amount of UV it’s letting in) then we have the inverse-Square law on top of that…
“Starting with a “100%” energy value, the energy at four feet is, incredibly, reduced to “6.3%” of the original energy! At ten feet, the energy is only 1% of the initial energy.”
It would be next to impossible for UV light to damage your brew in a bucket that is indoors unless you stuck it on your windowsill.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and tinkering with UV light because I attempted for years to grown food bearing plants indoors in a sustainable fashion, as a hobby.
It’s hard to grow food indoors without bees. You could pollinate with a q tip
haha. Vegetables don’t need pollination only fruit like tomatoes and peas etc (using the definition of fruit being the product of a flower being pollinated). I have Cacti that I can get fruit from but nothing else oddly enough.
And cucumbers and peas need pollinators. I guess you can grow carrots and turnups
