Separate storage rooms for sours?

[brent77]

I started my first venture into sours recently. I've read numerous accounts of people infecting other batches of non sour beers from sharing racking equipment / fermenters etc. not surprised. I am wondering however if anyone has had any issues fermenting a sour in the same area (I.e. closet, cabinet Etc.) as a non sour.

 

[dannyhawkins]

I find it hard to believe that proximity will infect other batches. But say the sour is giving off a lot of gas and an airlock happens to be dry, then you could in theory get an infection in that beer. Basically it's not gonna happen. If you let beer explode in the closet regularly and leave it on the walls for months and years to begin feeding and harboring wild critters you will have a lot more potential for infection when you open fermenters for samples and let airlocks go dry for long periods. The idea of segregating regular beer from sour or wild beers is probably coming from commercial brewers who have thousands of gallons and millions of dollars to worry about. They have to take every precaution to keep their beer as it should be. As for the home brewers that have cross contaminated its gonna happen if you use the same equipment on both types long enough. The better your sanitation practices the longer you will make it. How do you know your beer is infected with the sour culture in the next carboy or some wild strain without a microscope anyway? I personally have been using the same siphon and tubing without any problems out of cheapness. But it will happen eventually and when it does I'll get a new siphon and tubing and bottling bucket. As for segregation it's unnecessary just keep up with the basics and try to sample/bottle the same types at the same times.