Excuse me waiter, there is a fly in my....

WORT!
I brewed my third batch today, Dude's Pliny Clone. I'm outside brewing after the rain passed and the sun came out. I started with a 4 gallon boil and it got rolling good. After throwing my 6th ounce of hops in I took off for a few. I come back and start stirring things around when I noticed a black speck. After further investigation I pull it out and see that its a fly. Normally that would totally gross me out, but since there was a boil I could only laugh cuz the heat should kill any bacteria on the little bugger. Anyone else ever had a fly in their boil? How about a leaf? I got one of those too! I noticed that I had alot of boil off which brings me to another question, how much of a boil should I have? Just barely boiling or heavy rolling boil?

Anyhow, this will be my final extract brew unless I get the itch in dead of winter and decide to freeze my heiney off brewing outside. I'm an apartment brewer and I don't have an enclosed area to brew in so I guess I just have to start making equipment to brew AG when the weather breaks.

I've had flies land in the foam of my chilled wort twice before. Just picked em up with my spoon, no problems yet.

During the yearly Ladybug invasion they end up everywhere. They usually show up around Oct 1 & leave when we get a really good hard freeze. I've had leaves fall into the pot, the dog licking the ball valve, flies inside & out, gnats in the airlock.

Even found a few gnats & a ladybug in an airlock inside my chest freezer. I have no idea how gnats & ladybugs could survive, number one the cold in there & all the CO2. I put a fan on it to mix before I stick my head down in there to pull our carboys.

It's hard to infect beer.

zac

I have what I refer to as "Sweet Bee"'s show up when I brew.

They check out everything and sometimes get a little too curious around the sweet things and meet their death.