Maggots near bung hole

[nubeedubee]

Hi All,

I recently bought my first 20L Vadai barrel, prepped it according to their instructions, and filled it full of my 2012 Zin. I was using the wooden bung that comes with the barrel. I say "was" because tonight, after oaking for about 3 weeks, I noticed white little worms, I believe small maggots, where the bung meets the bung hole!

Nasty! So, I cleaned all the maggots off the bung hole and replaced the wooden bung with a silicon one. I believe the wooden bung was sucking up fresh wine from the barrel and providing the maggots with some fresh juice.

Anyone else ever experience this? I tasted my wine and it seems ok. Any reason I should be concerned?

Happy Winemaking!
Cheers,
Nubeedubee

 

[Runningwolf]

Glad to hear you changed bungs. What you probably had was mosquito larvi

 

[manvsvine]

mosquito larvae are water borne and not maggots, what you have is fruit flies and their maggots , the winemakers worst enemy.

wipe the area around the bung with a strong kmeta solution.

I keep some paper towel and a spray bottle of this in my cellar just for cleaning up drips and around the bungs.

fruit fly feces is the number one vector of acetobacteria , which can turn your wine to vinegar , you want to nip this in the bud and be vigilant in the future.

wooden bungs are only for shipping , not wine storage. changing to a silicon bung is a good idea.

 

[bkisel]

Hope I'm able to forget having read this post between now and this evening when I pour my wife and myself a glass of wine.

 

[Runningwolf]

manvsvine, thanks for correcting me, That exactly what I meant when I said mosquitoes. Yes absolutely fruit fly and you are spot on with what you said. I think I was sill half a sleep when I responded.

 

[manvsvine]

before he was famous , I had David Suzuki as a professor , his doctorate was studying fruit flies.

 

[nubeedubee]

Thanks everyone! Fruit flys make more sense. I thought it was odd to see maggots in that situation. I'll try the kmeta manvsvine.

 

[nubeedubee]

Makes me wonder though: What did they use in the days before silicon? Rubber? Before rubber?

 

[manvsvine]

cork was used , in fact you can still buy cork bungs but they weep and get microbial problems

wooden bungs were used too , but they have the above problems and they swell making it hard to get them out and potentially damage the hole stave, taping alternate sides is the method to get a wooden bung out .

 

[syncnite]

I also keep a spray bottle next to my two barrels with a 5% PMBS solution. I spray around the silicone bung very time I top off.