Barrel ruined with acetobacter? Fruit flies...

[grumpelstiltskin]

Let me know if this is the wrong section to post something like this, wasn't quite sure where to put it.

I've got a 15 gallon used bourbon barrel that has already had one beer through it (imperial stout). Timing issues worked out where I had to pull the stout from the barrel but didn't have anything yet lined up to put into the barrel.

After racking the stout out of the barrel, I gave the barrel a rinse, and then filled it with water/citric acid/potassium metabisulfite. I then put the wooden bung that came with my barrel back in and let it sit like that.

Fast forward a few weeks and I'm noticing some fruit flies around the barrel. Upon further inspection I see fruit fly larva crawling around the bung! I pulled the bung out and there were even more larva on the side of the bung hole on the barrel.

I threw the bung away, and used some paper towels to remove the larva around the bung hole, then topped the barrel back up to the very top with water. Some water had evaporated a few inches down from the barrel, so I don't know if any larva was on the inside of the top of the barrel.

How screwed am I in regards to acetobacter? From what I've read, there doesn't seem to be any good way to get rid of acetobacter once it's in the barrel. Any special cleaning regime recommended before I use the barrel again? Should I use the barrel again? I was thinking of rinsing and then filling with almost boiling water (I could pump from my brew stand). But it sounds even that isn't any guarantee.

Anyone else run into a similar situation with fruit flies/larva? Am I screwed?

 

[Pscdouglas]

I'm curious to see others' suggestions, but this is what I was thinking; because I have a similar problem and I am NOT ready to lose this barrel yet.

I have a beer in my barrel and although the wooden bung was pounded in tight, the heat and humidity lately are making things made of wood do some funny stuff. My barrel has been sweating the beer out even though I prepped it well and it was holding pressure before I used it. The fruit flies have lay eggs and are partying around the sealed bung. I have some 40% peroxide solution that I'm going to treat the outside area with and get cleaned up before I even think about opening this puppy. Does anyone have any other tricks to treating a situation like this? I hope to hell it works, My wife has been eying the barrel for decoration since I got it!

 

[grumpelstiltskin]

As an update, I got rid of my barrel. A few days after my original post, I started noticing what looked like a pellicle forming, weird thick looking bubbles that wouldn't pop and some white crud started surfacing. Mind you this was with my holding solution in the barrel (citric acid and potassium metabisulfite) and the only beer that had been in the barrel previously was a "clean" beer.