Slug Problems

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

CD

Retired Brewer
Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2019
Messages
618
Reaction score
769
Location
Dartmoor
The Newt has been unfairly branded as the worst boozer among creatures. That dubious accolade must surely go to the slippery slimy slug. They love beer, and can somehow detect the slightest trace of it from a mile away, in much the same way that a dog can sense a bitch in season in the next village. I don’t know about you, but I have come across slugs in some bizarre places.

IMG_1430.JPG


This wall is one of the few organised places in my home, where there is ‘A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place’, an adage my Dad tried, but failed, to instill into me. I once found a slug inside that tube connected to a pressure gauge, which I use to check the pressure inside PBs. I usually rinse it before hanging it up, but there must have been a sufficient trace of beer remaining to cause the slug to cross 30ft of concrete, climb the wall, cross to the gauge, descend the tube and jack knife around the end. What dedication.

IMG_1429.JPG


This is the last of 3 PB’s filled 60 days ago, being served by gravity as I haven’t bothered to connect up the hand pump hose. Simplicity personified, and I haven’t needed to add any CO2 as the yeast is still working. My beer store is a Mecca for slugs of course, and although it is closed with a magnetic seal, I occasionally find one lurking somewhere. How they were getting in was a mystery until quite recently, when I caught one of the blighters in the act. Do you remember the Shape Shifting alien in Terminator II, well this fat little slug somehow squeezed itself through a gap no wider than the thickness of a credit card, then reformed itself on the other side!

There have been about five instances over 30 years where a slug has found its way to paradise hidden inside the tap of the PB . I normally notice as it falls into my glass, the amount of beer wasted depending on when it drops. I say ‘normally’ as on one horrific occasion I had no idea anything was amiss until feeling something slimy in my mouth. UGH! YUK!!
 
In my teens, I used to bottle my beer in wine bottles and use ordinary wine corks. One day I found that some of the corks had blown out and I replaced them. It wasn't until I had poured my beer, drink half of it and went to pour the dregs out of the bottle that I found there were several dead flies in there. I was more careful with the other bottles and I looked before opening to see if there were more flies, which there were in some. No, I didn't carefully decant off and drink, leaving the flies behind.
No harm done to the beer, though.
 
You could leave a ring of salt around it which should also have the side benefit of keeping demons out as well.
 
Do you remember the Shape Shifting alien in Terminator II, well this fat little slug somehow squeezed itself through a gap no wider than the thickness of a credit card, then reformed itself on the other side!

Or Tombs on x-files.

I found a snail on an upstairs window (outside), must've slithered over the pebble dash, ouch. like kneipps therapy. Perhaps they have a taste for windowlene?
 
Going through my old brewing log books last night to try and find which hops were used in Jail Ale, I noted this entry made on 23/8/98, a day I was brewing: ‘Slug Army invading brewery. Repelled with bleach and hose’. I remember there was at least twenty of them slithering menacingly across the lane from the field beyond.

Forgive me if you’ve heard this before. (I expect you’ve noticed how your Granddad has started to repeat himself, - well I’m a great-Granddad . . .)

One day during the weeks ‘pupillage’ that I attended at Ringwood Brewery in 1984, I spotted an enormous black slug making its way down the inside of one of their open fermenting vessels containing 500 gallons of Old Thumper. Before I could do anything about it the fumes must have overcome it, as it fell with a plop through the yeast head covering the surface. I rushed down to the office to inform Nigel, one of the partners, expecting him to come and fish it out somehow, but he just said “It died, didn’t it” without even looking up from what he was reading!
 
The Newt has been unfairly branded as the worst boozer among creatures. That dubious accolade must surely go to the slippery slimy slug. They love beer, and can somehow detect the slightest trace of it from a mile away, in much the same way that a dog can sense a bitch in season in the next village. I don’t know about you, but I have come across slugs in some bizarre places.

View attachment 40405

This wall is one of the few organised places in my home, where there is ‘A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place’, an adage my Dad tried, but failed, to instill into me. I once found a slug inside that tube connected to a pressure gauge, which I use to check the pressure inside PBs. I usually rinse it before hanging it up, but there must have been a sufficient trace of beer remaining to cause the slug to cross 30ft of concrete, climb the wall, cross to the gauge, descend the tube and jack knife around the end. What dedication.

View attachment 40406

This is the last of 3 PB’s filled 60 days ago, being served by gravity as I haven’t bothered to connect up the hand pump hose. Simplicity personified, and I haven’t needed to add any CO2 as the yeast is still working. My beer store is a Mecca for slugs of course, and although it is closed with a magnetic seal, I occasionally find one lurking somewhere. How they were getting in was a mystery until quite recently, when I caught one of the blighters in the act. Do you remember the Shape Shifting alien in Terminator II, well this fat little slug somehow squeezed itself through a gap no wider than the thickness of a credit card, then reformed itself on the other side!

There have been about five instances over 30 years where a slug has found its way to paradise hidden inside the tap of the PB . I normally notice as it falls into my glass, the amount of beer wasted depending on when it drops. I say ‘normally’ as on one horrific occasion I had no idea anything was amiss until feeling something slimy in my mouth. UGH! YUK!!
Out of curiosity have you ever cleaned that freezer?
 
It gets thoroughly scrubbed with bleach and rinsed just before each new brew is put inside. It does get pretty manky between times I'll grant you.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top