Too many ferments in one kitchen?

Too many ferments in one kitchen?
Could it happen?

For years I've made a batch of tempeh once a week, and a gallon of saurkraut once a month...more recently a couple quarts of raw milk yogurt weekly and now I'm doubling our order to two gallons a week of raw cow's milk and making some cheeses.

And I was just given some kefir grains to try

Fortunately this little town has a woodfired sour dough bakery and our son happens to be the baker so I am not filling the kitchen with sourdough yeasties so much anymore.

Everything is working fine so far...just wondering if after awhile there might be problems?

Then there's my husband's hominy...not a ferment though.....


Any thoughts?

i think the only thing i’d worry about is funkies from the other things getting into an alcohol ferment that you wanted to stay ‘clean’ in flavor, but it doesn’t sound like that’s on the list. i don’t have much experience with cheese, but i might guess that that might be another place where, depending on what you’re going for, extra random funkiness might not be too welcome…or it could be!

in general i’d say the more the merrier.

Great points Greg: I've had beer and wine become sour when LAB out-competes specialty yeasts.
For safety and specific artisan flavors, long-aged specialty foods - for example meats, cheeses - require more care to prevent cross contamination with other complex starter cultures and wild strains.
I know that my kefir always tastes different depending on the weather, what plants are in season, and what other ferments I have going in the kitchen. Strange and unrepeatable flavors part of the appeal of LAB fermentation.

Others have asked that, I notice often kombucha first-timers, and honestly I haven't ever noticed any bad side effects from having all sorts of things going at the same time in a pretty small kitchen space. Most of the time my big concern is cleanliness of the fermenting vessel rather than what might be floating around. After all, there are all sorts of bacteria and yeast floating around as it is (as we find out when we make vinegar, sourdough, ginger bugs, etc) and they don't just go infecting everything willy-nilly, they have specific things they like to inoculate. But that's just my observation, I'm curious to see what others have experienced.

that’s a good point. if we’re talking about mostly wild ferments, you can probably assume there’s a little bit of everything in everything…but the environments in each individual project will make the ‘right’ organisms proliferate. in which case, you’re probably fine!

Thanks for the reassurances everyone!
I love the processes and having the time to experiment some.

Greg, that's the sort of thing I was wondering about.
we do make wine but only occasionally when there's an abundance of muscadines near by...probably a good idea to avoid having saurkraut fermenting at the same time.