Fermentation Support Forum

My vinegar has fruit flies, what should I do? Also, the apple cider vinegar I'm making has mother at the bottom of the jar as well as @ the top- again, what should I do? Thanks - Paul

Fruit fly carry acetobacter on their feet, the bacillus that will create a vinegar mother. Let them be for a while, then filter them out. Once they have created the mother, there is no further use for them, exclude them if you can, but they'll do no real harm. If you want to make vinegar from beer or wine, invite the fruit flies in for a party.

I have another question about fruit flies. I got some in my airlock on my Apple wine, I have never had this happen before is it probably just because of my vinegar at the other side of the room is attracting them? They shouldn't be able to hurt my wine by being in the airlock can they? I put a clean airlock on it but I am a little worried about it. I also thought that maybe my wine is emitting some didn't smells that are attracting them and maybe something has already gone wrong with it. I will rack it again next week and get a sip to see how it is doing.

This seems to be the year for fruitflies in the airlocks. They have always been attracted by the gas, but actually going into the airlock, I've never had that happen before.

Wine, cider, perry, and mead all attract the fruit flies (though they like the mead best). Alcohol ferments emit the same kind of gas that fruitflies love, so having them attracted to your ferment, probably means it's working just fine.

So far, they haven't gotten past the water moat in the airlock, they just crawl in and drown. However, I do rinse and refill the airlock if I see flies in it. Also there seems to be a correlation between fruit flies in the airlock, and the water level going down much faster than normal.

We racked almost everything about a week ago, and taste tests show no signs of contamination from the fruit flies. But it probably won't make much difference till we age it a bit more.

I've been trapping the fruitflies by putting about 1/4 cup of mead or wine in a glass with a drop of soap, they are attracted to the mead and then the soap makes them fall in and... well, they died happy.