Sour Dough Bread/Beer

I bake sour dough bread every saturday. I maintain a starter covered on the counter. Recently, I started making beer too. I've read about problems with wild yeast finding its way into brewers yeast and vice versa. Do I need to worry here? I sanitize before I brew and I don't usually bake on days I brew. Anyone with experience as a baker and brewer. Appreciate any help. Thanks.

You'll have a harder time keeping your commercial yeast from killing your sourdough starter than the other way around.

Use a good sanatizer like StarSan and call it good.

You might like this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/sour-peach-beer-76710/

Mr. Kahuna:

Thanks for the reply. Funny thing, the starter started smelling a little different; sorta like the matts on the floor behind the bar, but just a little, you know? Could my Nottingham snuck into the bread?

I'll make sure to cover the bread making starter more carefully.

I have an active sourdough culture I use for bread making. I'll dump the dregs from a homebrew in every few days to add more complexity to the dough starter, along with flour, rye, and something a bit of barley dust from the brewery. The combo of which provides for plenty of flavor in my house bread. I guess I have bread made with mostly ale yeast!

cheers!

I doubt one will infect the other since there is so little opportunity for either to become airborne.

Most small bakeries can NOT make a decent sour dough because bakers yeast is SO aggressive that it contaminates the starter for the sourdough even through the air circulation.
No, It's not a HUGE concern at the Home level...but totally worth being informed about.

When I worked at a bakery (I was an apprentice baker. I quit when I found out that at the top of my field, I'd be called a "masterbaker" , we kept our sourdough starter in the deli department's cooler to keep it away from where the bread was done. Just for that very reason.

Keep it off the counter and in the fridge. Take it out a day before you need it, feed it, and you'll be good to go. In the meantime, it will be somewhat protected.

I keep my sourdough far, far away from my brewing stuff. I just might be anal, but it seems to me that all the "stuff" I want in my sourdough (wild yeast strains) is stuff that would harm my beer and wine. When I have fermenting beer or I"m brewing, I keep the sourdough in the fridge the entire time. My laundry room (far from the kitchen) has the wine carboys, all with airlocks. I think that the sourdough can not possibly be harmed by the wine/beer yeast, but that the sourdough can definitely infect my brewing gear.

I have had the same sourdough starter for a year now.
The previous batch lived 8 years before my temporary move back home to Oregon. Unfortunately, it didn't survive the trip.


Anyway. The pacman yeast I added to the current sourdough batch has kicked ass and taken names. My weekly bread baking ritual has benefited greatly.

The San Francisco Sourdough has a bunch of Newport Oregon in it... and it is gooooooood.

I make my beer starters on the same counter as I knead my sourdough.

I also use instant yeast in baking in the same spot. Never had any problems.