Found dead mouse in my keg

[Bowtiebrewery]

OK so I recently had a exterminator come in and bait my house and the night before I was letting my corny keg soak with pbw to get the crud off the bottom of it... Came back in the morning, went to pour the keg out and out comes a dead mouse... I figure the little bugger ate the poison went to look for something to drink and fell in.

Now I'm worried about reusing that keg again... Im seriously concerned with the possibility of Leptospirosis in that keg...

Would cleaning and sanitizing with bleach and then Star san be the best way or should I just get rid of the keg.

Am I being a bit too paranoid?

 

[iijakii]

I'd wash and scrub with a strong PBW solution and call it day, probably. Nuke it with bleach if you feel like it, as well as replacing the orings if paranoid.

 

[soccerdad]

I'd wash and scrub with a strong PBW solution and call it day, probably. Nuke it with bleach if you feel like it, as well as replacing the orings if paranoid.

pardon me, but looking at iijakii's photo, I think it's a good bet that he would eat the mouse - and the cat who chased it - and the dog who chased the cat

OMG - forgive me - somehow Mike Huckabee climbed inside my brain

 

[Brian77095]

The question is should you get rid of the keg. I think you could clean and sanitize it with out issue but, you will always know that is the dead mouse keg. Can you clean and sanitize it yes. I think you could use bleach or star san either would do the job.

 

[iijakii]

pardon me, but looking at iijakii's photo, I think it's a good bet that he would eat the mouse - and the cat who chased it - and the dog who chased the cat

OMG - forgive me - somehow Mike Huckabee climbed inside my brain

Little extra protein never hurt nobody.

 

[ThunderKhajiit]

Can I get a free case? j/k

I would think soaking it in bleach or pure alcohol would kill anything. Be sure to get the o rings.

 

[JonM]

Don't get rid of it. Even used kegs are expensive as heck to replace. It's stainless and it absolutely can be cleaned. Bleach/starsan as mentioned above will do the trick.

Coulda been worse - you could have come back to a many weeks dead pile of mouse bones and fur in a stinky pile of decomposed nastiness.

 

[kh54s10]

Clean it, sanitize it, bleach bomb if you feel it is necessary, replace the rubber parts if you are really paranoid.

Call you next one Mouse Stout!

 

[Remmy]

OK so I recently had a exterminator come in and bait my house and the night before I was letting my corny keg soak with pbw to get the crud off the bottom of it... Came back in the morning, went to pour the keg out and out comes a dead mouse... I figure the little bugger ate the poison went to look for something to drink and fell in.

Now I'm worried about reusing that keg again... Im seriously concerned with the possibility of Leptospirosis in that keg...

Would cleaning and sanitizing with bleach and then Star san be the best way or should I just get rid of the keg.

Am I being a bit too paranoid?

Yes, you sure are.

Soak that thing in some hot water a few times with PBW and scrub it with a long brush. It'll be fine.

Otherwise, I'll take that keg off of your hands.

 

[iijakii]

Don't get rid of it. Even used kegs are expensive as heck to replace. It's stainless and it absolutely can be cleaned. Bleach/starsan as mentioned above will do the trick.

Coulda been worse - you could have come back to a many weeks dead pile of mouse bones and fur in a stinky pile of decomposed nastiness.

Man, a dissolved mouse would have been disgusting. That might be enough to convince me to say nope and just seal it back up and toss it.

 

[djonesax]

You beat me too it! I was gonna say "Dead Mouse Stout!"

Hmmm.... Now I really don't want to know where the name "Dead Guy Ale" came from.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

Maybe a "dry mouse" has just the barnyard/horsey funk you are looking for?

 

[johngaltsmotor]

If you're that concerned find a member of the home brew club to trade kegs with on an even swap. (whether you tell them the truth about why you need to swap is entirely up to you...)

 

[martyjhuebs]

Coming from my job in the military, I know that bleach will destroy everything from nerve agents to biological material. Knowing that, I would just bleach it with a 5-10% solution, rinse several times and air dry somewhere that a mouse cant get to. Next brew hit it with starsan and you will be fine.

 

[LKABrewer]

Be very careful using bleach on stainless, as it can pit the steel. Oxyclean and starsan will do the job.

 

[JonM]

We had a mouse issue last winter and I figured out that they were traveling along some pipes over the laundry sink, so that's where I put my traps (and I got the bastards.)

but the laundry sink is also where I let my kegs soak. Those traps fly a good distance when they go off, and I was totally paranoid about one falling into a keg. So I just drape a towel over all soaking kegs, just in case.

 

[martyjhuebs]

Be very careful using bleach on stainless, as it can pit the steel. Oxyclean and starsan will do the job.

Hadnt heard that, but I havent really looked for it either. Will it happen with a 5% solution though? We use a .5% to decontaminate skin...

 

[passedpawn]

Hadnt heard that, but I havent really looked for it either. Will it happen with a 5% solution though? We use a .5% to decontaminate skin...

Probably not 5%. I used 100% bleach in a keg and it ate away the bottom of the dip tube in a week. BTW, I had a sour beer in there and was going nuclear on sanitation. Maybe too nuclear

 

[Homercidal]

"Savoir Faire Stout?"

Savoir Faire is EVERYWHERE!

 

[martyjhuebs]

Probably not 5%. I used 100% bleach in a keg and it ate away the bottom of the dip tube in a week. BTW, I had a sour beer in there and was going nuclear on sanitation. Maybe too nuclear

Great thing about bleach is that it doesnt take much and doesnt take long to fix problems, a week, defintiely too long! I would never soak anything metal in bleach for a prolonged period. Bleach should never be used for buildup... OxyClean on the other hand, I let that ride for a couple days and itll remove all my buildup.

 

[Paramecium]

If I were you i'd get a new pest control guy. You should absolutely never use poison in a house or other building. I used to work pest control and saw it all the time though. You get dead rats/mice/whatever in the walls and such stinking the whole house up. Saw one family that tore an entire bedroom wall out and found it full of dead rats. Traps are the way to go in a house, poison is just lazy and can cause more problems than it solves.

As for the keg, clean the hell out of it but as others said, it will still be the mouse keg.

 

[augiedoggy]

Is this a joke stemming from last weeks thread about someone finding dead bugs in their empty fermenter?

look up the definition and point of sterilizing something.

if they can take coffee beans and cocoa which is often full of rat and mouse feces, and hair and make it safe to eat/drink. I think a properly cleaned piece of stainless steel can be reused after a dead mouse comes into contact with it... My lord..

 

[singybrue]

Like, I heard that if you bring that keg back to the brewery eh, they'll give you a full keg free, eh!

 

[sudbuddy]

Now I'm worried about reusing that keg again... Im seriously concerned with the possibility of Leptospirosis in that keg...

I've heard Leptospirosis gives a nice tart sourness and is less susceptible to hops than lactobacillus, so rock on!

 

[sudbuddy]

If I were you i'd get a new pest control guy. You should absolutely never use poison in a house or other building. I used to work pest control and saw it all the time though. You get dead rats/mice/whatever in the walls and such stinking the whole house up. Saw one family that tore an entire bedroom wall out and found it full of dead rats. Traps are the way to go in a house, poison is just lazy and can cause more problems than it solves.

Here you go, you can have all of my nopes. Just take em, they're free

 

[johngaltsmotor]

It only took 22 posts to get to the Strange Brew reference DING DING DING we've got a winner!!!

 

[Dixon9717]

Maybe it'll pair well with the subway sandwich with a mouse in it from Lincoln City Oregon. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1445024833.649532.jpg

 

[Aristotelian]

Is this a joke stemming from last weeks thread about someone finding dead bugs in their empty fermenter?

look up the definition and point of sterilizing something.

if they can take coffee beans and cocoa which is often full of rat and mouse feces, and hair and make it safe to eat/drink. I think a properly cleaned piece of stainless steel can be reused after a dead mouse comes into contact with it... My lord..

Dude, you are telling me that it is common practice to have rat and mouse feces in the process of making chocolate and coffee? Thank you for ruining two of my greatest pleasures in life (along with beer)!

 

[iijakii]

Bet coffee brewers have the same mindset as us. "Eh, it's all pre-boil!"

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I have a friend who used to be a winemaker. She said that they often had mice or rats fall into fermenters, or go through the grape crusher thingy. They'd float on top and swell up/bloat, but the wine was still OK. There are acceptable levels for these things in food, so I wouldn't worry about a fresh one falling into a keg.

 

[JonM]

I just had a revolting thought. What if it had fallen into the keg while it was being filled? The OP might post something about an off flavor, and we'd ask diagnostic type questions about the recipe, fermentation temperatures, procedure, whether the CO2 was bad, eetc. and then OP would open the keg and OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

 

[iijakii]

"I find brett funk greatly increases once kegged. Not sure why."

 

[slym2none]

if they can take coffee beans and cocoa which is often full of rat and mouse feces, and hair and make it safe to eat/drink. I think a properly cleaned piece of stainless steel can be reused after a dead mouse comes into contact with it... My lord..

If they can take coffee beans that civets have eaten & then pooped out...

:fro:

 

[augiedoggy]

Dude, you are telling me that it is common practice to have rat and mouse feces in the process of making chocolate and coffee? Thank you for ruining two of my greatest pleasures in life (along with beer)!

Yes... I actually learned about this in science class... apparently the standards arent that high in south America where this stuff is harvested and stored... Rats absolutely love the cocoa and they are almost always present in the large warehouses where the stuff is stored.
Like mentioned earlier there are acceptable levels. like with ketchup... there is no protien in ketchup but the feds allow up to 8% in it which comes from those tomato grubs....

anyway the whole point of stainless over plastic is it can always be cleaned sterilized.

 

[brewbama]

Do you think breweries get rid of every piece of equipment they find a mouse it?

 

[raysmithtx]

Bleach, PBW, starsan and brew a " mouse Trappist ale".

 

[Bowtiebrewery]

Wow you guys really ran away with this thead... Hahah... Thats what happens when I go away for a few days... Thanks for the extra information on this one guys. I'll oxyclean that and hot water sanitize it...

I don't even want to think about if a mouse fell into a keg right before kegging it... Ugh... I think if I opened it and found that in there after drinking it for a while... I would probably puke right then and there...

 

[iijakii]

Who knows, maybe OP has a fantastic house yeast now.

 

[sudbuddy]

I have a friend who used to be a winemaker. She said that they often had mice or rats fall into fermenters, or go through the grape crusher thingy. They'd float on top and swell up/bloat, but the wine was still OK. There are acceptable levels for these things in food, so I wouldn't worry about a fresh one falling into a keg.

Don't you think the acidity of the wine would dissolve the mouse over time?

I remember a case a few years ago where a guy tried to sue PepsiCo. because he claimed that there was a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. The lawyers came back with a settlement offer and said "we aren't disputing that there may have been a mouse in there, but we know for a fact that you would never have found it because the Dew would have liquified it." I have not had a Mountain Dew since.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Don't you think the acidity of the wine would dissolve the mouse over time?

I remember a case a few years ago where a guy tried to sue PepsiCo. because he claimed that there was a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew. The lawyers came back with a settlement offer and said "we aren't disputing that there may have been a mouse in there, but we know for a fact that you would never have found it because the Dew would have liquified it." I have not had a Mountain Dew since.

The one's they find, they fish out. Now how many don't they find that don't get fished out, and probably dissolve......

I'm never drinking wine again.