Fruit Flies - Ugh!!

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lhunkele

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Nobody told me about the fruit flies that come with winemaking... :slp

I've attempted to set a trap with some vingar and a few drops of dishsoap in a covered glass with a few small holes in the top... does this really work?

Have you encountered this before? What do you do? ACK!!

Thanks!
Linda
 
Nobody told me about the fruit flies that come with winemaking... :slp

I've attempted to set a trap with some vingar and a few drops of dishsoap in a covered glass with a few small holes in the top... does this really work?

Have you encountered this before? What do you do? ACK!!

Thanks!
Linda

Not sure if vinegar would work, put some wine in a wine bottle and a little dish soap
 
Like Julie said a bottle with about an inch of wine in a wine bottle. Then add 2-3 drops of dish soap in it and do not let the soap hit the sides of the bottle. The flies will smell it and not enter. Do not apply any kind of cover on the bottle. I found this works best but as a back up I also added a fly strip. If you have such a serious problem as you say I think you should also do the same and then please post back the success on both of them.

DSCN2135.jpg
 
We picked many tomato's from our garden today, bought cantaloupe, a watermelon to do homework on for wine making, plus skeeter pee is finishing fermenting, my jalapeno wine just started to ferment and my wife threw out an old jar of applesauce in the kitchen trash. She opened it of course first.

I have more M F fruit flies than you can imagine. I brought out the Hoover cyclone and have become really good at catchin' those buggers in flight just before they engage the cloaking device.

It's not just a game....it's an obsession!
 
We picked many tomato's from our garden today, bought cantaloupe, a watermelon to do homework on for wine making, plus skeeter pee is finishing fermenting, my jalapeno wine just started to ferment and my wife threw out an old jar of applesauce in the kitchen trash. She opened it of course first.

I have more M F fruit flies than you can imagine. I brought out the Hoover cyclone and have become really good at catchin' those buggers in flight just before they engage the cloaking device.

It's not just a game....it's an obsession!

waahhaahaa, love it steve, i'm gonna do that right now!!!!
 
No worry..
A little protein never hut anyone. :h
 
I know a guy who set up a table fan to blow across his wine making table; he turns it on when he is working on the wine and the strong air flow keeps the little buggers at bay.
It may be true that a few of them won't hurt anything, but we seem to be terribly conscious of them getting into anything; I know I am. I have a trap that gets a lot of them but they seem to have lots of reinforcements so maybe I'll give the fan thing a try!
 
Thanks for the giggles to get my morning started!

I had already set up the vinager and overnight captured six. I have since prepared the wine bottle also. Since I'm looking at another week before racking into the secondary I believe both will see more activity...

I understand they have a short life span, but read in their seven days, tend to lay more eggs and the cycle continues... Not In My House!! ;)

Thanks again!
Linda
 
My wife and I constantly deal with fruit flys. My wife is a bit of a hippy (however she wears a bra and does shave and shower) She loves to dehydrate everything and compost as well. we have a countertop composter which produces beautiful results however it also produces copious amounts of fruit flys or aka vinegar flys. we have tried everything from wine in a bottle, apple cider vinegar with sugar and dish soap. We have found that the best thing for us was the commercial fly trap. It looks like a little red apple with an opening in the top. within days, the flys are gone and they stay gone for about up to 2 months then we replace with a new apple trap. I purchased mine from a local hardware store $5.99.

good luck
 
Actually that's wrong. One fruit fly, or any insect could introduce bacteria that could ruin your must.

This is certainly the assumption I work under as well; my comment was simply to acknowledge that some people say not to worry about them, citing the existence of bugs in fruits that are used, etc. You're right though, I probably shouldn't have mentioned this at all.
I personally don't know anything about acetobacter (sp?) or other bacteria or how little/how much it takes to be a problem. That's why I try to keep them out altogether.
 
Like Julie said a bottle with about an inch of wine in a wine bottle. Then add 2-3 drops of dish soap in it and do not let the soap hit the sides of the bottle. The flies will smell it and not enter.

Why the dish soap? Why can't it hit the site of the bottle?

The flies will not enter the bottle? I thought that was the whole idea.
 
Lots of fruit flies could introduce sufficient bacteria to spoil your must/wine, however you need to have a sufficiently large initial inoculum for the bacteria to reach problematic levels. So, in short, a few fruit flies won't ruin your wine.

There are already plenty of bacteria and wild yeast of various species in your must and wine that could cause spoilage but do not provided the conditions that allow their growth are prohibited.

I would try to keep fruit flies out of your wine, but I wouldn't get stressed out if you see a few have infiltrated your carboy/fermenter.
 
Manimal I don't know. You ain't seen some of these fruit flies at my place. They can carry away small children :)

Ok so I stand corrected. One Bad Apple Don't Ruin The Whole Bunch Girl! :):):)
 
Well (fwiw) in my small experiment on day one; the vingar and dish soap concoction is catching 10-fold the fruit flies as the wine and dish soap...

...besides, I hate the thought of having to share the wine with them little devils - they can have all the vingar they want!
 
Well (fwiw) in my small experiment on day one; the vingar and dish soap concoction is catching 10-fold the fruit flies as the wine and dish soap...

...besides, I hate the thought of having to share the wine with them little devils - they can have all the vingar they want!

Hey thanks for the update. Wish you had a fly stip too so we could get a good comparison there also. I would do it but I get very few of them buggers so far.
 
Set a cup of black coffee with about a TSP of sugar in it in the evening. The next morning NUCK them bastards with a dose of flyining insect repellent. Repeat one more time and they will be gone.
 

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