Beer Forum

Hi, all. I'm new to the forum and relatively new to sours. I have a question on the chance of contaminating other fermenting beers near a fermenting sour.

I bought a rye barrel (15 gal) with a few buddies and we have used it for a few barrel aging experiments. The first beer was an imperial stout, the second was a red rye (and both turned out really great) and now the last one we will use the barrel for is a saison, and we are going to add fresh WI cherries and Roeselare yeast to sour it. We are pretty excited about this one. The barrel is in my basement and will sit and get funky for about a year once we add the yeast - with an airlock, instead of the wooden bung.

Since the barrel will likely breathe, do I need to be worried about fermenting other beers in the general vicinity? I don't want to ruin other beers. I don't know if there could be any residual airborne stuff??

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks!

No, you will be just fine fermenting other beers in the vicinity. I would recommend that any plastic parts you use for your souring projects are kept separately from your regular brewing equipment to avoid any cross-contamination. Things like auto-siphon, racking canes, siphon hoses, wine thief's, airlocks, stoppers should all be separate for best results.