What's the best way to remove coffee odors and oils from a spice mill?

Try grinding rice.

I too have heard that grinding rice works. I just did that to clean out a little Krup’s coffee bean grinder that was gummed up with ground flax seed. It worked pretty well.

Grinding sugar helps too.

I have used rice when needed… I have separate grinders, one for the coffee beans and one for spices:-)

Febreeze it.

Get another one.
Looks like you could use one for coffee and another for the herbs/spices.
Clearly you could use one for coffee….

So the only reason to clean that one out to use it for herb/spices , is if you thought it would fall into disuse for herbs/spices soon enough for you to get it back for coffee.

Another thing to clear it out is bread. Very absorbent.

But they’re cheap enough at $10–20 average. Just get another one and dedicate it for spices.

Just for curiosity, what were you previously using to grind your coffee beans with prior to this one coming into the house?

I had an old coffee mill that had a hopper on top for the beans. It funneled the beans through the mill, and sent the ground beans to a lower hopper. The top hopper had a plastic neck that would secure it to the mill, and some of the plastic had broken off.

The last few months, I have been grinding my beans at the store.

Yeah, I wouldn’t much like plastic ground in with my coffee either :) Yucky.

It sounds as if it was a burr grinder (at least from the description ) and they’re not cheap to replace. But unless you’re doing French press coffee, I don’t think that degree of precision is all that necessary.

You can find one of the little whirly bird types for not too much and then both you and the wife are happy. You might even luck out and find one at a thrift shop since they’re so common.

@blueberry_kid: Febreeze should never be sprayed near anything that is going to be ingested.

For me personally, I would never use it near air that anyone is planning to breathe either.