Moving a "brewery" across state lines and to a new home

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adamjackson

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Location
Canaan New Hampshire
I'm moving to a new house. I live in a cabin now and use a converted closet to store my commercial and home-brews. I'm moving to a house that finally has a full basement / cellar and keeps at ideal temperatures for my beer to mature. It also has a nice basement that will work great for brewing beer / having a man-cave. I'm pretty happy.

The issue is..moving everything.

I have 500+ commercial beer bottles + 6 full carboys + a full size fridge that's a kegerator and 6 kegs full of beer.


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Yes, I have furniture but this is my important stuff. I'm really worried about driving all of this 2 hours and can't fit it all in my Toyota Corolla. so I'd have to either load it all on the U-Haul or take multiple car trips. Most of the bottles and kegs, I'm not worried about.

The carboys are another story. So, how do I move carboys? I imagine they should all stay up right, out of the light but I guess I should visit my local grocery and buy some egg crates? I figured egg crages with each carboy wrapped wrapped in bubble wrap is the best I could do and hope they don't fall over in the back of the moving truck?


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And I guess I don't tell my movers they're transporting beer because, across state lines...is not legal but oh well. It's all for personal consumption.

Any moving tips from people who have done this before?

:mug:
 
Moving carboys of beer....I would be nervous about all that sloshing, even if you put a solid stopper on them...Pesonally I would bottle or keg anything in carboys so they are in sealed, co2 protected environments.
 
Moving carboys of beer....I would be nervous about all that sloshing, even if you put a solid stopper on them...Pesonally I would bottle or keg anything in carboys so they are in sealed, co2 protected environments.

I trust you are right and that was the answer I was hoping to not encounter.

All of these beers need to stay in the carboy until February and one should remain in there through March. The sloshing is for sure a concern of mine.
 
Another option that wouldn't hurt but might help would be to flush the carboys with co2, since you keg, seal them with hard stoppers and then saran wrap, rubber bands and tinfoil over the bung....That ways it is only sloshing co2 and there's now way the bungs are going to pop off in transit.
 
Another option that wouldn't hurt but might help would be to flush the carboys with co2, since you keg, seal them with hard stoppers and then saran wrap, rubber bands and tinfoil over the bung....That ways it is only sloshing co2 and there's now way the bungs are going to pop off in transit.

This ^^^

Hit it with co2 and purge any oxygen. Put dark teeshirts over them and keep them upright. Just remember to air lock them when you get there.
 
I recently moved, not that far, but I had 3 carboys with me. I duct taped solid stoppers on and put the carboys in milk crates with bathroom towels folded underneath and packed in the open spaces of the crates.
 
Sounds like a great excuse to buy some "extra" kegs, right? Flushing kegs with CO2 and using them to "secondary" is a great way to age beer anyway.
 
Awesome advice! Yeah, I can do a CO2 flush and use my hard stoppers and afix ducttape. All the carboys are done with primary fermentation (no more bubbling...nearly standstill gravity)..the Brett beers are still working away so must stay in the chamber but I can seal them up for 1 hour and drive them directly to the new house so I'll do that.

should I get the egg / milk crates anyway? I might have someone I can borrow them from
 
Another option that wouldn't hurt but might help would be to flush the carboys with co2, since you keg, seal them with hard stoppers and then saran wrap, rubber bands and tinfoil over the bung....That ways it is only sloshing co2 and there's now way the bungs are going to pop off in transit.

Or........simply stretch a balloon over the mouth of the carboy. ;)
 
Sounds like a great excuse to buy some "extra" kegs, right? Flushing kegs with CO2 and using them to "secondary" is a great way to age beer anyway.

+1

The kegs would be spill/leak proof and light-tight, and they're not going to shatter in the back of a moving truck. Those that you've got Brett chomping on at the moment, you could either transfer back to carboys once you're in the new house, or simply hit the relief valve from time to time to make sure you don't get too much pressure build-up, and you'd be golden.
 
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