Grain Mill in Garage

Since moving my brewing inside two years ago, the only thing I store in my garage is my grain mill.  Grains and equipment are downstairs in a dedicated closet.  Yesterday I noticed some mouse dropping on and near my grain mill.  There are not any inside the mill as far as I can tell.  I’m only seeing 5-10 on the table top of my mill stand.

My question is whether there is any reason to be concerned.  I’m thinking that sweeping them up and setting some traps is enough.  Anything else I should do?  I’m guessing I should be fine, but worth a post.

Not planning on telling the people who drink my beer regularly.

Ha! Clean up, move forward, set traps. I prefer Decon.

Don’t tell them what is on your grain before it goes in the mill either, lol.

Who knows what’s been in/on/around your grain from the field until you saw it.  Hit the mill really well with your shop vac and, oh, don’t forget to boil your wort. :wink:

PS milling outside away from the rest of your brewery is a great idea.  I’d worry more about lactobacilli on grain dust reaching my wort than mouse poop in the supply chain, but I wouldn’t worry very much about either one.

Thanks, guys.  Jim, I used to use Deacon until we let our current cat roam at times.  Thankfully the cat did sniff out the first mouse that showed up in my basement brewery this winter.

Robert, good point about the grain prior to our sight.  Just anotheret topic where we forget to see the forest from the trees.

Maybe my next beer should be a Mouse Poop Brown?

When you share with friends just ask them if they are allergic to mouse turds as you are handing it to them

How do you enter the mouse turds in BeerSmith?

Match up the SRM  8)

30A Spice, herb or vegetable? No…maybe 30C Winter seasonal, since that’s when the mice hunker down in the garage?

It could be entered as a specialty beer with “wild rice” as an adjunct.

Waltsmalt I am not sure exactly what part of the country you are in but in the Southwest we have to worry about Hantavirus.  It is carried by rodents down here and is extremely rare but deadly and hard to get rid of.  It is present in their feces and urine.  If you are in an area affected by this virus you might want to throw a hepa filter on your face and in the vacuum to be sure you dont get it in the air.  Not sure if boiling kills the virus.

Right…You may want to wear full SCUBA gear for cleaning, milling, and mashing…You should also do a 90 minute boil at least.

If you’re not in Hantavirus country,  though, all joking aside, our earlier observations are valid.  Agricultural products get stuff all over them all the time, and I’m unaware of any hazard other than disgust posed by rodent byproducts.

Breweries and feed stores have always regarded mice in the grain as safe and nontoxic, though undesirable as they eat the stock with no payment rendered.  What’s not safe is a poisond mouse corpse in the grain.  That’s why cats have been the preferred deterrent.

I’m in Minnesota, so I’ll stick to boiling my Wort and call it good.  Thanks for the info.

I keep my mill in the garage also, but keep it in a plastic tote. You can find pretty cheap in stores this time of year.

The old-fashioned spring-type mouse trap with peanut butter as bait is non-toxic and works well.  The mice keep coming back to try to lick all the bait out and eventually get caught.

I store my grain inside the house, and mill the grain outside the night before brewing on the next day.  I then hose down the area after milling and where I’m going to brewing to prevent contamination form grain dust.

I do like Bucknut’s suggestion of keeping the grain mill in a plastic tote.  Next time I’m at Walmart, I’ll pickup one to store my mill in.

Put two traps in the garage.  Nothing yet.  Maybe that’s a good sign as no other signs of droppings.

My mill is mounted to a cart and motorized, otherwise it would be in a tote as suggested.

If you have a cat around as you mentioned, even occasionally, that may well take care of the problem.  I’ve got personal experience, as do others I know, that any cat, even an old, blind lame cat, on premises will do.  The varmints somehow sense it, and don’t take chances.

My mill is motorized and mounted on a cart as well. I sweep it off well (including the rollers) after each use with a clean paint brush and wipe the cart and all exterior surfaces with a slightly damp paper towel to minimize the dust.  Milling is done outside most of the year unless raining or snowing.  I also use a vacuum cleaner on it outside when I see residue on the underside of the mill…I condition my Grain before milling, too…just the way I roll and YMMV, of course.

The deer mouse is common throughout North America and around 30% of them are infected with the hantavirus. The only real risk is to yourself when dust is getting kicked up from the mill and breathing it in otherwise the virus dies during the brewing process.

Milling outside is your best bet and the odds of actually getting sick are extremely extremely remote but it is a scary disease.

I’m from the 4 corners area and was a young teenager during the outbreak down there in the 90’s the scary thing was is that when people got sick a lot of them didn’t recover and officials didn’t initially know how it was being spread or what kind of virus it was at that point.

See attached pdf file that explains more about the hantavirus.

Brew on!

Edit: I just realized this is an old thread that was resurrected from the dead lol.

Link to PDF Download

i think people have covered it mostly, but re: any pest. IMHO - clean up the food source 100% and they will disappear. theyre not going to hang around if theres no food for them to eat.