fruit flies on wooden press

[Miranda Rood]

Hi everyone,

This is my first year with my own cider press. With my schedule and the quality/size of the equipment I'm using, I have only been able to press about 6 gallons a day. So, I spend a lot of time cleaning everything in between. After pressing, I usually spray off my wooden press with the most powerful setting on my hose, and scrub it with a brush while doing so. Today, all the separate parts that were lying out to dry have fruit flies crawling all over them. I've heard many times that once acetobacter is introduced to the wood, there is no way to ever clean it and it will only make vinegar from now on. This sounds a little dramatic to me, just based on the history of cider/wine making and inevitable conditions and situations that arise. What can I do to the wood that could maybe neutralize it, or clean it enough so that it won't make vinegar at least? I naturally ferment all my cider, and never add anything to the juice at any stage of fermentation, so I won't be able to take any preventive steps in that direction. I've searched everywhere for answers with no luck, I'm hoping someone here can help me!

Thanks, 

Miranda

[Andrew Lea]

You are right, the risks are over dramatised.  Fruit flies are ubiquitous and it’s not that easy to take juice all the way to vinegar unless you try quite hard. Cleaning with water is just fine. Make sure everything dries off afterwards. 

If you want to go one stage further, a spray with SO2 solution after washing and before drying should keep any acetobacter well out of the picture. 

Andrew

------------------

Wittenham Hill Cider Page

www.cider.org.uk

--
--
Visit our website: http://www.ciderworkshop.com
 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "Cider Workshop" Google Group.
By joining the Cider Workshop, you agree to abide by our principles. Please see http://www.ciderworkshop.com/resources_principles.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cider Workshop" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cider-worksho...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cider-workshop/87a304b3-c3c4-497f-91ba-777fbc35abefn%40googlegroups.com.

[Bennie]

hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is also a possibility

Op za 7 okt. 2023 22:58 schreef Andrew Lea <ci...@cider.org.uk>:

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cider-workshop/1FC45BCA-2E2E-49F4-8FE1-0A23EE8DE071%40cider.org.uk.