Cross contamination questions

[justineaton]

I'm new to brewing sour and haven't really gotten into it much yet, I have a second set of carboys and brewing equipment for it and recently started a kombucha wine but I can't wait to brew a Brett. I bought some books to read up on sour brews first though. Anyway, my question is about cross contamination with non sour beers, is it a bad idea to brew them in the same room? Is it ok as long as they are not fermenting at the same time? How about kombucha, I make and drink it everyday and hasn't had any cross contamination yet so I assume it won't cross contaminate the way I have been doing it, (kombucha brewed and fermented in kitchen, beers brewed in kitchen and fermented elsewhere in house) but maybe I have just been lucky so far. I have a couple other experimental kombucha brews that I did while preparing to get into more traditional sour beers but I will post those in another thread. Thanks for any input.

 

[fermentology]

Two barrels next to each other could be a concern, but yeast and bacteria are not going to go through glass or plastic and unless your fermentation is really violent and you have open systems, you'll be fine. In theory with an air lock your beer is in a closed system. If my "beer" room is cool enough in the winter I'll ferment clean beers in it and I've got like 40 gallons of sour stuff up there fermenting. No issues with cross contamination during fermentation.

 

[justineaton]

Thank you