Blasted fruit flies!!

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Nugent

Nugent

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Have a Mirror Pond-inspired pale ale and an Irish Red Ale bubbling away furiously in the beer room - one in a Yooper's ghetto fermentation cooler and one with British II which can handle the high teens-low twenties Celsius temps right now.

Late summer fruit fly infestation is in full swing and they were all over (though not in) the airlocks this morning. Dozens of the little b@$tards. A few drops of dish soap and an oz. of red wine vinegar in a shot glass seems to be doing the trick. It's like buying a cat a scratching post so they won't scratch the sofa. They needed something funkier than fermenting wort to fall to their deaths in.

The joys of summer brewing. :mug:
 
I HATE those things!!

We don't get them that bad, but when we get them , it seems like we have to get rid of any fruit or any food sitting out and seal my fermenters to get rid of them.
 
I was brewing today and had a ton of wasps flying around, which I really didn't care for. I get those things into late October, but we get fruit flies once in a while, but never to the degree where we need to put something out for them.
 
I got hit with 'em this time last year when I was wanting to bottle up my siason, but I didn't want to take the airlock off with all those little bastards buzzing around. Ended up with my beer spending a month in secondary after it's 3 weeks in primary.

Turned out FANTASTIC and I swear a big part of it was the long bulk aging it got while hiding from the vinegar making buggers.
 
...Wow do they really make vinegar? Do they carry acetobacter, or do they just consume alcohol and make it internally? I've gotten them all summer around my fermenter, and I've been really nervous when racking too.
 
They can carry acetobacter on their feets and can spread it. If you have an airlock and it has the proper level of liquid in it, you're safe.
 
i have those little flys to! I HATE THEMMMMMMMMMM not near my beer though which I found to be strange.... Only in my kitchen and upstairs bathroom??? yeah a little strange... I did the vinegar trick to.. works like a charm!
 
They got so bad in our house last week that we now store our fruit in the garage. I was making crabapple wine and they were really a nuisance. The vinegar trap helped, but not as much as I'd like.

I got rid of most of them after ridding my house of fruit completely, cleaning drain traps with bleach, etc, and then I was able to get my wine under airlock. I don't usually airlock my wine primaries, but I sure have to at this time of year. I have three buckets of crabapple wine, and one of American amber, so I really don't want to have 20 gallons of vinegar!
 
Thought I would bump this b/c I'm having a fruit fly problem. I've had them bad before but never around my current fermenting beer since I keep in the basement. The vinegar trick usually works but what I recently found works 100x better is just some good old fashioned beer. If you have any beer you can waste, pour some into a glass and let that sit out. It was kind of disgusting how many I got in a beer that I accidentally left out. They are all over my kegerator.
 
We get'em in the kitchen,so we started using those stick flt ribbon things. Hang it up with a tack,& as it warms up,it stretches out,& has a sweet smell to them. It's fun to watch'em go in head 1st. Heeelllp meee,help meeee....ha!
 
Nugent said:
Have a Mirror Pond-inspired pale ale and an Irish Red Ale bubbling away furiously in the beer room - one in a Yooper's ghetto fermentation cooler and one with British II which can handle the high teens-low twenties Celsius temps right now.

Late summer fruit fly infestation is in full swing and they were all over (though not in) the airlocks this morning. Dozens of the little b@$tards. A few drops of dish soap and an oz. of red wine vinegar in a shot glass seems to be doing the trick. It's like buying a cat a scratching post so they won't scratch the sofa. They needed something funkier than fermenting wort to fall to their deaths in.

The joys of summer brewing. :mug:
Click to expand...

Fly Paper works wonders too! So does French Dressing lol.
 
be sure to address the root of the problem, if you're that concerned.

those flies love damp areas, and fruit, especially bananas. i refuse to bring bananas into my house for that reason. be sure to fix any leaky pipes that they can thrive off of. they live in the soil of house plants too.
 
Dogphish said:
be sure to address the root of the problem, if you're that concerned.

those flies love damp areas, and fruit, especially bananas. i refuse to bring bananas into my house for that reason. be sure to fix any leaky pipes that they can thrive off of. they live in the soil of house plants too.
Click to expand...

I know, but that's my problem. I eat 3-4 bananas every day. Can't keep them out of my house. I do try to put fruit in the pantry though and that helps a little. I probably have 100 flying around my kegerator right now. They are even going up into the faucet.
 
If they're congregating in one area, the vacuum cleaner is your best friend! First that up, use the hose and just suck 'em out of the air! I had them driving me nuts once until I thought of doing that. It's super easy since they tend to just fly around in little swarms and stay in the same general place for a while.
 

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