Summer Wine making/Fruit Flies. and Free Fruit

My sister gave me enough Blueberries, Raspberries, and Blackberries to make 10 gallon of each, I also have 10 gallon of Apple, So now they are in primaries. I have 6 gallon of Rhubarb/Apple, 6 gallon of Strawberry, and 6 gallon of Cherry/Chocolate in carboys ready for bottling. My question is with summer wine making I get a problem with fruit flies coming around. I have been using a spray pesticide being carful of where and how much I spray. What do others do to control fruit flies during the summer when you have wine going. I have sealed my primaries with a lid and airlock same as the carboys so I don't think they can get in the wine but they sure are annoying

take a small jar with metal cap. using a nail puncture the cap with multiple holes. Add must of fruit to jar about a tablespoon. Place around the winery. flies enter the jar through holes and cannot come out. Make more than one to populate area. clean out every couple of days and refresh with new must.

We have millions of them every year too. We set out wine in small dishes or wine glasses to trap them. When the dish gets full of them, change it out. If you don't capture them, they'll be in the house even at Christmas time.

Like Turock, I use wine but I take a mason jar and about a 1/2" of wine, then take a piece of paper and make a cone out of it, place the small end into the jar.

Add a couple of drops of liquid dish soap to a small glass, carefully an inch or two of vinegar. Swirl around but don't stir because you do not want bubbles. The fruit flies will come to the glass for the vinegar and the dish soap keeps them from flying away and they drown. No need to cover the container!

I have been told by an old wine maker that if they get in your wine it is no longer good. I just dumped a 3 gallon batch because I found 1 floating in it when I did the first racking. Now I keep my primaries under air lock. Any idea on using wine that they get into or is it ruined? Might try the trap ideas, so far the flying insect spray has been keeping them under control but I am concerned about using it even though my wines are under airlocks. I still use caution when spraying my cellar trying not to get any around the primaries or carboys. I have an appointment with JC Ehrlich to talk about a solution, they have an ultra violet light system used in commercial kitchens to control flies that may be a solution I would try.

One fruit fly did not likely ruin your wine. Try my idea above, it is cheap and it works. You could place a few around to catch more of them and they will die.

wineon4, I would be concerned about airlocking a primary, you are cutting off oxygen that it needs at this point. Place a towel and then the lid of the primary, that should keep the fruit flies out and stop spraying in your wine area! That stuff is probably residual and is coating all your equipment.

One fruit fly will not contaminate your wine.

The light trap I am looking at has an average cost of 125.00 to 185.00. Waiting for the pest control guy to call back with a quote to furnish and install. It uses a Blue light, a glue tape, and scent attractant. Scent is good for 30 days before refreshing not sure about the revolving glue paper.

Julie, I open the primaries twice a day and stir. stopped spraying yesterday, now just waiting on JC Ehrlich to call back. My wife is insistent on having a Pro. come and do something with them LOL.

Make sure you have air movement, like a fan going. The flies love the CO2, but I find as long as I have a fan going, blowing toward my fermenter there is usually no issue with flies.

Error, sorry

I can also vouch for the wine and dish soap idea. Whenever I have a fruit fly problem (usually at my compost holder) I set one of those out and it ends. The soap breaks the surface tension so that the flies cannot stand on the surface partially as they think they can. The liquid just swallows them in.

I make my traps about the same as Julie. Course ya gotta get the lazy man to tell you how to make it. Take an old plastic soda bottle, cut the cone shaped cap end off. Put your wine with a drop of dish soap in the bottom, invert the top end and shove it in the bottom end. When you get a bunch of flies in it, pitch it and make another. Arne.

Might try that one Arne, got my light installed yesterday. Now to see if it works. I covered all my primaries and carboys with a plastic trash liner. My problem is not bad, when I go to the cellar I notice a few maybe 5 or so flying around just enough to bother me.

dang..i thought i was the only one....
Sammy k..i like your idea, kill them all...take no prisoners.

James when we don't have wine going we use vinegar and dish soap. If we have wine fermenting we use wine and dish soap. I will tell you the vinegar works much better. We are worried about vinegar in a glass in close proximity to fermenting wine.

Believe me--save your money and just set out some wine for them.. We've been doing it this way for 24 years and by the time Thanksgiving comes around, all those millions of fruit flies are dead. If you don't trap them, they bred like rabbits and you keep getting MORE. A pest control company will always try to sell you SOMETHING because they can't make any money by telling you to make a wine trap. Try some of our ideas BEFORE you spend money on something a pest control guy wants to sell you. $120 could buy you several CARBOYS instead!!

Got a phone call from the Pest control company they dropped off some fruit fly traps at my home today. I will see what they are like when I get home. If everything works I will be a happy winemaker again. The light helped, when I went to my cellar this morning before leaving for work I only saw 4 fruit flies flying around, the sticky paper was covered in the little buggers.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the problem with fruit flies and wine is the flies carry a bacteria that can spoil the wine.

Of course one wants to eliminate the flies as much as possible.
That being the thought, don't throw away a batch of wine, even if it has several fruit flies in it. One doesn't know it they have enough of the bacteria to ruin the wine or not. My advice - Fish them out, properly sulfite your wines, top them off to reduce oxidation (oxygen access), and keep on keeping on.

We use those sticky traps in the greenhouse for white flies, they are CHEAP to buy! Are the stickies yellow?