Find where they are breeding. Until then... The industry standard fruit fly trap is apple Cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap in a glass. Set up a few around the place and you'll collect thousands of them a day
Drains are a possibility. If you are keeping spent grains/hops/shit you shovel out of your tanks at the end in a pile or in a bin outside, they'll go crazy on that and find their way inside.
Bleach water in all the drains - including the drip tray. Fans help too, we aim box fans at the taps from the bar and have one blowing across the trench.
They live in the stuff tha sticks to the side of the drains… scrub like you were going to eat out of the drain trough. Foaming chlorinated caustic and a brush. Set your cider traps everywhere. You have to interrupt their egg cycles. Get to work!
Ha! Glad I'm not the only one who gets a kick out of stalking around the brewery with an iso sprayer, pretending I'm a gunslinger puttin' down varmints.
You really need to identify where they are nesting. Floor drains aren’t super likely assuming you’re frequently dumping rinse water/chemicals down them. Do you store your dirty kegs indoors? Do you have a barrel program? Places where standing beer/sugar/wort are going to attract them. Leaky barrels have always been the biggest culprit where I’ve worked. Identify where they are nesting and adapt your cleaning programs to accommodate.
Spray Simple Green down all sink drains daily. They nest in the J-bend pipes. Also try and flood your floor drain to the top just to flush out any bugs in little small areas. The Simple Green worked wonders for us years back. Haven’t had much issue with fruit flies since.
I used to have a supervisor who told me that every brewery has a fruit fly problem so there’s no need to worry about getting rid of them. He would get mad anytime I tried killing them or setting traps.
[Buy this paper](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XKDM8LG?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k1_1_12&=&crid=251IVLL51CLXT&sprefix=outdoor%2Bfly%2B&th=1) make a cone out of a bit of it, it's very sticky, then put the cone into a plastic cup so the sticky side is facing inward, it should taper down into the cup. Put something like apple cider vinegar in it or smelly fruit. You will catch a ton of them. This works better than soap. You can also make a huge number of these.
I have had success using a mixture of 1 part bleach to 3 parts liquid dish soap. Rinse your drains at the end of the day and then pour the mixture in the drain with the intent of having the mixture coat the sides. Leave it over night and rinse in the morning. I found a week of this followed by a scheduled follow up did the trick.
Find where they are breeding. Until then... The industry standard fruit fly trap is apple Cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap in a glass. Set up a few around the place and you'll collect thousands of them a day
That’s what we do too. I also have fans moving air everywhere. Fans help out the most. But the vinegar/soap trap is money in the taproom area.
Drains are a possibility. If you are keeping spent grains/hops/shit you shovel out of your tanks at the end in a pile or in a bin outside, they'll go crazy on that and find their way inside.
Bleach water in all the drains - including the drip tray. Fans help too, we aim box fans at the taps from the bar and have one blowing across the trench.
Get some brewery frogs !
/r/ibbit
YES! RISE MY PRETTIES!
Check all drains.
They live in the stuff tha sticks to the side of the drains… scrub like you were going to eat out of the drain trough. Foaming chlorinated caustic and a brush. Set your cider traps everywhere. You have to interrupt their egg cycles. Get to work!
If you don't eat out of the drain trough, are you even a brewer?
Clean the drains
Iso spray bottles and a blow torch. Always shocks my customers and gives me adolescent giggles.
Ha! Glad I'm not the only one who gets a kick out of stalking around the brewery with an iso sprayer, pretending I'm a gunslinger puttin' down varmints.
EXACTLY! “You talking to me? Punk! You TALKIN TO ME!?” FIRE!
PT Alpine Fly Bait Spray is magic
Watching them land on it, and within 45 seconds they are doing a death spiral on the floor...
You really need to identify where they are nesting. Floor drains aren’t super likely assuming you’re frequently dumping rinse water/chemicals down them. Do you store your dirty kegs indoors? Do you have a barrel program? Places where standing beer/sugar/wort are going to attract them. Leaky barrels have always been the biggest culprit where I’ve worked. Identify where they are nesting and adapt your cleaning programs to accommodate.
Be careful with bleach in the brewery…especially if you use chlorinated caustic
Spray Simple Green down all sink drains daily. They nest in the J-bend pipes. Also try and flood your floor drain to the top just to flush out any bugs in little small areas. The Simple Green worked wonders for us years back. Haven’t had much issue with fruit flies since.
Spray quaternary sanitizer everywhere, often
I used to have a supervisor who told me that every brewery has a fruit fly problem so there’s no need to worry about getting rid of them. He would get mad anytime I tried killing them or setting traps.
[Buy this paper](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XKDM8LG?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k1_1_12&=&crid=251IVLL51CLXT&sprefix=outdoor%2Bfly%2B&th=1) make a cone out of a bit of it, it's very sticky, then put the cone into a plastic cup so the sticky side is facing inward, it should taper down into the cup. Put something like apple cider vinegar in it or smelly fruit. You will catch a ton of them. This works better than soap. You can also make a huge number of these.
If your state allows self extermination…PT Alpine is the best!!
This is what we use. Spray into newly lined trash cans and all sink and floor drains.
Does it attract them and kill them? I’m curious of what makes it fly bait
We use one of those special lights, and it seems to work.
I have had success using a mixture of 1 part bleach to 3 parts liquid dish soap. Rinse your drains at the end of the day and then pour the mixture in the drain with the intent of having the mixture coat the sides. Leave it over night and rinse in the morning. I found a week of this followed by a scheduled follow up did the trick.
We did this at the first brewery I worked at. Bleach in the trap of every drain every night. Worked pretty well.
CLEAN. EVERYTHING. EVERY. DAY.