Tap a draft system and travel

Ok short story first. Last summer I took a case(24) of various beers with my family driving down the east coast to VA to visit some friends. Well apparently between being moved around during the trip and the the warm temps I ended up with some over foaming and even worse, exploding bottles.

This year I've "upgraded" to a Tap-A-Draft system. This works really well for me(I hated washing 50 bottles), and traveling short distances so far has been great(carbed or not).

Now the question I have is this:

1) Should I naturally carb the TAD bottles I'm taking to VA this year as normal
2) Should I just carb enough to form a CO2 layer to cover the beer until I get to our friend's, then force carb
3) Just leave it as is in the bottles and force carb when I get to my friend's?

I should also note that I'll be packing them up again in the bottles to travel to Ocean City, MD and then back home if they are not empty.

For the record, I know it was not an infection as most of the bottles were left at home, and did not have any of the same issues. It wasn't the same beer, that was in the bottles that exploded it was three different beers brewed at different times. Also I know it wasn't and infection in the bottles, I'm anal about cleaning my bottles. It could have been stress cracks but I have no why of knowing. Several bottles were reused, and of those bottles I still have some that have beer in the them from the same batches.

Any additional insights to traveling with beer longish distances by car would be greatly appreciated as well. I'd rather not have razor sharp shards of glass flying in the air again. It was scary enough the first time. This time wouldn't be so bad as it's plastic, but still not something I want to happen. I was standing next to the bottles when the second one burst.

Thanks,
Krieger

I don't have an answer here but was wondering how you like the TAD system... I really want to get one as a middle ground before investing in kegging. Sorry for hijacking your thread!

Honestly, I love it. I've put 3 different beers into the 3 bottles I had from my first kit. Other than some issues putting in the CO2 carts(no different than my paintball guns from time to time), I haven't had any issues. I LOVE not having to clean, sanatize, or store tons of bottles. If I want to take some someplace local, I just put the bottle a tap head and a handful of CO2 carts into a box and I'm good to go. The average bottle uses around 2 CO2, and because of the design of the mount for the cart you lose one from time to time if it's not lined up perfectly.

I like them enough that I got 5 more bottles for Christmas last year, along with 3 more tap heads. Now I just need a beer fridge to store them in... hahaha... I suspect my wife will be having me get one sooner or later. She's not a fan of them being in our regular fridge, even though they aren't that big by themselves. Putting a couple in at a time would be an issue I think.