1st time cherry wine has maggots!

Well, if it were me, I'd just scoop them out and let the wine continue. It certainly isn't any kind of health risk that I know of. Actually, If you leave them in, they may provide nutrients for the yeast!

There's a guy in Duluth MN who makes wine from armyworms (tent catepillars) .

It's probably the hot water that did 'em in. I don't understand why you didn't see them when you were pitting the fruit. You _did_ pit the cherries, didn't you?

See if you can skim them out, but leave the fruit. A little protein fining later on will take care of whatever remains of them. Grapes come in from the field with lots of bugs too, and they go straight into the crusher without being washed. They get separated at the first racking.

Tom S

Phil That's why a straining bag works great! They hide all those little impuities you may not want to see. As Grag said, just scoop them out and continue making the wine. Just think of it as a little of mother nature's natural spices!

Dan

I saw on a web site (Jack"s)?? that the average ton of grapes contains X amount of bird droppings...X number wasps...X number of rat's nests etc.. The point is that you should keep on making the wine. Any impurities will fall by the wayside the stronger your wine gets. There are no pathogesn that will remain once you achieve 12% alcohol. Hope this puts your mind to ease.

Mark L. Buffalo-Niagara USA

"> It's probably the hot water that did 'em in. I don't understand why you

No I didn't pit them. I put them in a sanitized plastic bucket after washing and destemming them. I then washed my feet real good, put the bucket next to the bath tub,(so I could just step out and rinse my feet when finished) and stomped on'em till they were good and mushy.

I've been lerking on this group for about a week and found a link here that said that it wasn't necessary to always pit. Some of the recipies said to pit'em some said don't bother.

OK I'll just let it go. BTW the ferment is really going good. The smell is actually pretty nice. It's not like beer though. I'm used to tons of foam (kruausen) on top of the beer. This ferment just seems to push the cherries (and maggot:-( to the top.

FWIW the maggots are all dead. They don't seem to have a chance during this strong ferment.

I plan on straining them through a big ass grain steeping bag used for beer. I didn't know wine making would be so easy. If you are already brewing beer, you have all of the equipment.

BTW I plan to bottle using screw tops. A lot of the wineries here are using them now instead of corks. Any problem with this?

Hah! You aren't finished yet. Plenty of traps along the way.

None as far as I can tell. Some of the studies I've read say that among cork, synthetic corq and screwcaps, the screwcaps retain freshness and bottle to bottle consistency much better. If you're a brewer you have a crown capper. You could go with that too.

Tom S

But don't the commercial wineries use a special machine to apply the caps? I thought that a hand-screwed cap was not the best to use because you just couldn't get the as tight as machine applied ones. I'm curious what is available for the home winemaker to apply screw caps for long term protection?

Since you're a beer maker, I would suggest you use standard crown caps. They work great and a 12 oz bottle is a nice serving size.

Dead or drunk? LOL!

"> None as far as I can tell. Some of the studies I've read say that among

Actually I don't have a crown capper. I'm in Germany so I can easily get swing top bottles. That's a lot easier than capping.

But I don't think the wine would look too apetizeing sitting in those brown swing top bottles.

Is this not dangerous? I understood that cork was best because it would blow if the wine started fermenting again. Could the bottle not explode? Or are the bottles/ screw tops designed to take the pressure caused by re fermenting?

-- Regards Thomas Edinburgh Scotland

If he's using Grolsch bottles, pressure buildup won't be a problem. They'll leak before the bottle bursts.

Tom S

In all my years, I have never seen a burst bottle do anything but blow the bottom out. It is barely noticeable; you just hear a and a sudden noise of flowing liquids..... I had a batch of mead high up in my cabinets. One morning whilst eating my corn flakes a series of pops was heard and sparkling mead began cascading from the cabinets..... Bob<

LOL That will be ok then. I'm sure the wife wont' mind!

-- Regards Thomas Edinburgh Scotland

I'd doubt that they're maggots, though--aren't those only laid in dead meat?

hawk

I don't know. If they were not maggots, what the hell were they? I say 'were' cause I strained out the pulp, pits, and er, for now I'll call them creepy crawlers;-) and put the liquid in the secondary.

Beats me. There's a multitude of nasty critters that want our beer & wine . . .

Hmm, there *must* be a use for the former creepy crawlers . . .

hawk

In 2002, I got some cherries from two sources in the Okanagan. One source had perfect cherries. The other source had many cherries with the little white worms. Exactly what they are, I don't know. I did my best to eliminate them as I was washing and pitting, but I did notice several oozing out of my somewhat stretched nylon straining bag as I was squeezing the juice out. I know for a fact that my cherry wine had a little extra protein in it that year, but what I've sampled is still good.