This Sunday after the AHA Rally at Revolution Brewing Kyle Arnold, Josh Smith, Josh's fiance Annalyse, new brewer level member Mark Haar and I went to war with the growing number of fruit flies in the brew house. Jamie Proctor stopped in to check on his beer and ended up staying for over an hour to help us clean as well.
On Saturday, myself and a couple others were troubled at the number of fruit flies in the ferm room, but we thought it could have been due to the door being left open.
On Sunday morning Josh contacted me to say that it was a bigger problem than initially thought and they may have been breeding in fermenters that have long since forgotten about.
After the Rally we came back to the brewhouse to completely clean the ferm roon and dump fermenters that needed to be dumped long ago. In all we dumped around 60 gallons of infected beers, some of which was brewed in 2012 and others that had dried airlocks or missing airlocks. Most of the beers was from members that we were not familiar with or un-labelled.
After the ferm room we scrubbed the brew house tables, sink and floors trying to remove anything that the fruit flies might consider tasty. We also set-up 20 fruit fly traps around the brew house, bar and ferm room to try and catch the ones that decided to stick around.
We spend a good 4 hours cleaning and sanitizing and by the end of the night the fruit fly situation was vastly improved...Please continue our efforts on your own brew/bottling/transfer days and clean throughly and throw the trash out. We need to stay on top of the situation to win this war!
Wow, thanks guys!!
I would just like to add another potential source for fruit flies are the grain composting bins. When I emptied my grain on Friday a swarm of fruit flies flew out. I've seen people roll these into the brew to dump spent grain. Please refrain from doing this.
If you are unable to carry your mash tun to the bins, feel free to roll them closer, just not all the way into the brew house. The garage door should also be shut if you roll the bins close to it, as the fruit flies will just go straight into the space. I know it's a hassle, but it's imperative to keep the brew house as fly free as possible.
Whoah, thanks for all the hard work!
Wow, thank you guys for the hard work.
I was there last night and they are still pretty numerous. Not sure what else we can do at this point to elimate or even reduce them?100's of traps?
I brewed yesterday evening and they seemed mainly confined to the keezer area. They only came by the brew bays once we started drinking beer. Maybe focus our efforts in that area?
The solution with the seran wrap doesnt seam to be perminant maby we should invest in those tap plug things anyone know were to buy them?
I think tap plugs are a great idea. That way we can just remove one, pour beer, then put it back on. Last night, the only taps with wrap were the kicked. The active taps had no wrap and the spucex ale tap ejected a cup of fruot flies when Eric used it.
http://www.brewandgrow.com/brew/draft-beer-equipment/beer-faucet-cap-bla...
http://www.brewandgrow.com/brew/draft-beer-equipment/kleen-plug-for-fauc...
"Bacterial digesters are available to pour down infested drains. Bleach can sometimes be effective; although it is rarely stays in the drain long enough to address the accumulated slime that attracts fruit flies. While not effective at eliminating an infestation, fruit fly traps may provide temporary relief by trapping some of the adults."
http://www.orkin.com/flies/fruit-fly/
We have many potential sources, the drain and the keezer are probably prime targets. There's a lot of grain, protein, and trub that goes down there that would be a great breeding ground...but the pounds of hop sludge might be antibacterial enough to counter it. I don't know...
Whatever this bacterial digester stuff is, it might be worth dumping some down the drain.
I mentioned the tap plugs at the beging of this infestation, last saturday when I went to pour a beer from the kezzer, I got 20 or such flys with every pour. Mmmm, protein...
Amazon has a knock off of Kleen Plug that comes in sets of three for $9.00. I can order them this morning, if everyone's cool with using them.
I think at this point we need to seriously consider a wholistic approach to fixing this. Beyond just general cleanliness I think at this point we have an infestation and its time to go to war. We really have two options here, we either call out the militia, close the brewhouse, and have a project day that focuses just on cleaning and organizing (which we need anyway). Or, we hire some mercenaries and bring in a professional to help us get rid of the bugs and clean out against them in the future.
Right now, I think we should go the cleaning day route, and then hold the professional option in our back pocket if it becomes a problem again.
Personally, I think this is a major issue from a reputational and visibility perspective. If people see any bugs during an open house, they're going to write us off as a great place to get infected beer. Beyond just getting some plugs for the keezer (which are awesome, I use some cheaper ones on mine at home), we have to kick the entire infection and the source (some unclean spots in the BH). Any thoughts?
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
I was at the brew house quickly on Sunday and Kyle changed all of the fruit fly traps that we made and already there was a drastic improvement.
I stopped again at the brew house last night and I only came across two fruit flies by the keezer area.
With that said, I am all for a cleaning day and I have had several people reach out to me and say they also wanted to be part of a cleaning day soon to help with this same issue. We can never be clean enough.
PS...I read another Fruit Fly trick where you vacuum them out of the air, this might help us get the remaining ones.
I'll help if available.
Hey guys, I am in to help too.
I know that this is probably more than a one person job but I'll be there on the 30th almost all day (no one signed up to brew for my 8a-11p day so I changed it to 8a-6p). So, if you want me to do something in particular, if you all don't get to it first, let me know.
Jim