Bugs in Beer?

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jmann86

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Ok, so I've been brewing for about 6 months now, and one thing I noticed is this tiny little bugs were getting into my airlocks, they would somehow get in, have no way to get out and up dead. Ok, not a big issue, I just switched from water to vodka in my airlock. The bugs still got in, but I figured this would keep it as sanitary as possible. They never actually made it to my beer, that I am aware of at least

So, i was putting a bottle of my IPA in the fridge yesterday and I noticed that the bottle had about a dozen of these little... 'bugs' in the beer, all dead. Has anyone else seen this? I randomly checked the rest of the batch and I didn't find anymore.

If anyone else has dealt with this issue, do you have any suggestions?

PS. The bugs are gray-ish and 2-3mm in length.
 
Pics? And what kind of airlock?

I get fruit flies clambering around my airlocks but they can't get inside. I throw a piece of cheese cloth around the airlock and put out some traps. No problems.

(where do you all get that TTIWWOP smilie?)
 
Its a standard three piece airlock with like 6 holes in the top to let air in and out.

I'm pretty sure they are not fruit flies, at least not the ones I'm used to. They didn't want to wash out of the bottle I found them in and I was too lazy to find my bottle brush, so I am currently bleaching it. I'll dump that out and see if I can get a couple of pics of them.

I usually just ignore them since they haven't caused any real problems so far, but finding a bunch in a bottle was kind of disturbing, especially since I'm kinda OCD about bottle cleaning
 
Blow off tube. That's my answer.

But still; How did they get in there!?!?
 
Well, as expected the bleach obliterated everything in the bottle, and I haven't found any in the airlock in my secondary yet.

The only thing I can figure is some got in when the bottles were drying and laid eggs, or the beer was already contaminated. If the later was true, I would have figured I would have found more bugs in other bottles. Who knows, but if I only lose one bottle out of 50-ish, I'll be happy.
 
If you want a natural trap for fruit flies, get a shallow tupperware, pour in some apple cider vinegar, 3 drops of dish soap, mix it up & set it near your fermenters. Vinegar attracts them, soap sticks to their wings and they drown.

Humans - 1, ****ing bugs - 0
 
Sounds like fruit flies to me. The ones I get are around 3 mm long. I've seen exactly what you've seen in some bottles and I just throw them out since those larvae things are damn near impossible to get rid of.

If you want a natural trap for fruit flies, get a shallow tupperware, pour in some apple cider vinegar, 3 drops of dish soap, mix it up & set it near your fermenters. Vinegar attracts them, soap sticks to their wings and they drown.

Humans - 1, ****ing bugs - 0


+1 on that too. It works great.
 
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