Moving - how to handle carboy

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

terrapinj

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
2,397
Reaction score
175
Location
Santa Monica
We're moving in 10 days and I'm a little nervous about relocating my Flanders red. It's been aging about 8 months now in a 5g glass carboy.

Anything I can/should do aside from hit it with some CO2 and just be very careful when moving it? There are some dips in the road and I have to carry it up a flight of stairs so def will be some moving around inside.

Will have more space for my brewing and storing a few more carboys for aging in the future so there are some perks.
 
Are you gonna keg or bottle it at the end? If you're gonna keg it I'd say do it now and forget it for a few more months. If not, just be really careful as you said. Do you have one of those carboy handles I see in some of the LHBS? I'd try that and see if you can get a buddy to help you keep it stable on the stairs.
 
was planning on moving in a milk crate - thought about kegging but i was hoping to leave it in the 2ndary for a few more months

decisions decisions
 
I moved two years ago and had to move three carboys with lambics/flander's and just added a little sugar and flushed them with CO2. I assume that if any oxygen did get in to the fermenters during my trek it would get flushed out with the renewed fermentation. One of the lambics won BOS out of at least 75 entries at my LHBS's comp.
 
I'd just flush a keg and keg it, leave it for a few more months. It's not, in my opinion, worth the risk of breaking a fermentor and losing the beer if something bad happens (as has happened to me with glass during a move). This way you'd have a kegged beer already, little additional risk, and a clean carboy for your inaugural new place batch. Plus pulling a sample would be super easy on low pressure CO2.
 
You can't stop it from swishing around it's only possible to do this with baffles which fire trucks use. Doesn't matter what you secure it with or to, the inertia of the bottle and the movement of the car / van will inevitably swish your beer.
Seems like kegging it is your best option.
 
going to keg it in a few days - any need for a airlock at this point or should I just pull the pressure relief every few months or so?

it'll almost be 9 months old at that point so not expecting too much of a change in gravity once it settles after the move
 
Back
Top