It Urinated on My Grain- a nasty question

Apparently I have a rat in my basement. I'm not so much disgusted as angry. My father kept rats as a part of his work, so I'm no stranger to rat droppings. The problem is the bastard got into my box of specialty grain. Thankfully, I keep my bulk grain in another part of the house. I have about six small bags of different grains, for a total of 3.5 pounds. The rat got into my Victory, but doesn't look like it nibbled on anything else. Each of the bags is medium thickness plastic and individually sealed. I would just use them, but the rat defecated and urinated in the box. Sould I: 1) Just use the grain; 2) wash the bags carefully and use the grain; or 3) toss them and get new grain?

I'd dunk the bags in bleach water. If they're sealed the bleach water won't get in and you can be sure the droppings didn't either. If it gets in, the droppings probably did too.

I'd bet money there is rat poo in the grains we may never see

Only 3.5 pounds? So your talking a little more than 10 bucks probably right? I would just toss them.

I'd bet there are plenty of rats running around our favorite craft breweries making pebbles and leaking golden water.

Do your best to clean stuff up and brew away.

Pretend you're living in early America.

There was probably rat poo along with the bugs before you got the grain anyway.

Your boiling the wort anyway, so every thing will be fine. Use the grains, and who knows. You may come up with this crazy new taste in beer that everyone will love.

screw it... use it. Its gonna get boiled for an hour anyways...

The FDA allows a certain number of rat hairs, droppings, etc in most of our processed foods anyway -- I am sure this is not the first encounter these grains have had with a rat -- take reasonable precautions in cleaning and use'm

Oh I thought you meant a rat actually pissed on your grains, so I was going to say you could just brew a Miller Lite.

The solution to pollution is dillution...

Seriously, rinse the bags - smell the victory malt, if it smells like piss, toss it - if not, rinse (to make yourself feel better), then use...

Just one (cheap, pet rat owning) man's opinion.

BierMuncher said:

Pretend you're living in early America.

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lol, go for this one

HippieCrack said:

lol, go for this one

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Dude...HippieCrack?

I wanna party with you

The boiling will kill anything and everything.

I doubt you have "a rat". They're gregarious creatures. That's the real problem here.

ODaniel said:

Oh I thought you meant a rat actually pissed on your grains, so I was going to say you could just brew a Miller Lite.

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Miller's secrets revealed................

menschmaschine said:

The boiling will kill anything and everything.

I doubt you have "a rat". They're gregarious creatures. That's the real problem here.

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Unfortunately you are right. There is probably a nest somewhere nearby. For now, my vendetta is against the grain pisser. If it had gotten into my MO, I'd be in the basement right now creeping around with a heavy shovel.

Tech211 said:

For now, my vendetta is against the grain pisser.

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Just wanted to point out that this single line is quite possibly the greatest sentence I have ever heard. I almost spit my water out when I read that.

Another epic thread in the forum. Thanks for the laughs. You should set some traps with Dogfish Head as bait.

just brew with it, whats a little hauntavirus or leptospira anyway

deathweed said:

just brew with it, whats a little hauntavirus or leptospira anyway

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Don't get him all worked up here! He's "pissed" enough right now.

Seriously though, use "wet cleaning methods" in your basement whenever cleaning up rodent urine/droppings. You don't want to aeresolize the stuff or hanta virus becomes a valid concern (but it's reportedly more common in mice than rats). A spray bottle with bleach solution works well.

Also, you probably don't have a plague vaccination like those of us who've been in the military and stationed in California (talk about a sore arm!), so watch out for flea bites!

Tech211 said:

There is probably a nest somewhere nearby.

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This is exactly right. Rats are also lazy. They like to keep their living quarters to around 50-100 ft of their main food source, IIRC.

wash the bags. Rat piss can contain arsenic which can be troubelsome but if you rinse you should be fine. Any parasites would die when you boil anyway so if nothing else the poo provies extra proteins.

menschmaschine said:

Also, you probably don't have a plague vaccination like those of us who've been in the military and stationed in California (talk about a sore arm!), so watch out for flea bites!

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My arm?? I thought that was why my ass hurt! Too many parties in the barracks I guess. :cross:

Awesome thread!