Is it safe to transport primary full of beer ready to bottle?

I need to bottle a batch of brew, and I wanted to do this with a buddy of mine. He lives roughly 20 minutes away. Is it safe to drive my primary over for bottling? Any risks involved?

yeah it's fine. I've done it. In a bucket, I put it on the floor behind the passenger seat and sort of clamp it down with the seat (and hold onto it when I make turns).

Your best bet is to drop it off the day before to let the trub settle again (you're gonna stir it up), but in a pinch, an couple of hours are okay.

The risks are obvious--you're gonna be mad if you lose that beer!

I sure the hell don't agree. All that sloshing is pretty much going to oxygentate the beer. Oxygen + fermented beer = liquid cardboard.

I would bottle it before you move them. That way they're in a sealed, air tight, environment.You can still let them condition.

It's not an airtight environment.

The only time it is truly safe to move a beer not in a keg or bottles is within the first 24-48 hours after yeast pitch. Before fermentation has really taken off. That way the yeast will use any of the oxygen that gets in there during the fermentation process.

Otherwise it's a crapshoot as to how the beer will turn out. Bottle it then move it.

Revvy.

If the beer has been in the primary all of the oxygen is long gone and has been expelled by the CO2.

The sloshing will stir up the yeast. But how is oxygen getting into the primary. I am assuming your airlock is intact.

Rev's right. All that sloshing around is going to aerate the beer. Now that there is no ferm going on it will pull in outside air.

I am an advocate of don't worry, but in my opinion that is too risky for all your hard work.

Special Hops said:

Revvy.

If the beer has been in the primary all of the oxygen is long gone and has been expelled by the CO2.

The sloshing will stir up the yeast. But how is oxygen getting into the primary. I am assuming your airlock is intact.

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An airlock is hardly a suffient barrier in the case of heavy shaking to prevent oxygen from getting in. Hell, even under normal conditions it's not totally a safe barrier, ever see the thousands of threads we get about airlock suckback?

Besides, if he's ever opened his fermenter to take a grav reading, or to peak inside, he doesn't necessarily have a perfectly filled with co2 headspace.

You wanna try it? I can guarantee that if he bottles his beer and moves it, he won't oxygenate his beer, can you?

So take the airlock out and seal it with a solid stopper.

Special Hops said:

So take the airlock out and seal it with a solid stopper.

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And in doing so you just pushed a bunch of room air inside the headspace, which is going to get sloshed around and possibly oxygenate your beer once you start driving down the road.

Of course it could also work loose during transport as well.

OP, just invite your buddy over to your place to bottle the beer. Then you 100% know you won't be risking it. Anything else is a crapshoot.

Special Hops said:

So take the airlock out and seal it with a solid stopper.

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Like a bottle cap. But first put it in 12 oz. bottles.

Revvy is way overplaying it IMO, especially considering that you are going to be bottle conditioning the beer immediately after moving it. Unless you're laying this beer down for long term aging, I wouldn't worry about it.

Revvy said:

And in doing so you just pushed a bunch of room air inside the headspace, which is going to get sloshed around and possibly oxygenate your beer once you start driving down the road.

Of course it could also work loose during transport as well.

OP, just invite your buddy over to your place to bottle the beer. Then you 100% know you won't be risking it. Anything else is a crapshoot.

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Not sure how mich air you push in. Do you purge all you bottles before filling. What about all that oxygen in there? Switching from an airlok to a stopper will not introduce more oxygen then is left in the neck of on bottle when filling.

The risk is there no doubt. Why risk it is all I would be thinking of. You spent so much time making this beer, to get everything as right as possible. Money has gone into it to, and then again it is 5 gallons of BEER!

Special Hops said:

Not sure how mich air you push in. Do you purge all you bottles before filling.

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Don't you fill your bottles all the way til some of the beer spills out over the side, then pull the bottle out from under the wand to set the headspace, and then leave the caps lightly sitting on top of the bottles for 5 minutes or so? That IS purging the headspace with co2, both the co2 already present in solution, which is pushing up and out with the beer AND any that is quickly generated by the yeast eating the sugar you just fed them. You ever had any caps pop off before you cap them, or do a little dance on top of the bottle, or seen little starsan bubbles? That's co2......If you bottle correctly there should be little if any oxygen left in the headspace of the bottles when you cap it.

GodsStepBrother said:

The risk is there no doubt. Why risk it is all I would be thinking of. You spent so much time making this beer, to get everything as right as possible. Money has gone into it to, and then again it is 5 gallons of BEER!

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Yeah, that's why I don't get with all this armchair quarterbacking. If you bottle ahead you know you won't oxygenate your beer. Anything else is just quibbling for the sake of quibbling. The OP asked if there's a risk...minimal or not, "overplaying" it or not, whatever the hell that means, if you transport the beer in anything other than a keg or a bottle, the risk is there.

The OP's got two different sets of opinions, now he's just got to make his own mind up. It's his beer. He's gotta decide whether he wants to risk it or not. I think it's clear that some of us won't, while some will.

But I can't see anymore value in this silly back and forth....I'm not that bored to play.

*shrug*

I have a hard time thinking there is an argument about this. If you aerate your beer after fermentation starts then you are asking for oxidation to occur. End of story.

I don't bottle anymore.

Look I am not saying there is no risk. But with some good foresight it can be minimized.

As adamant you are about oxygen getting into your beer. You sure do recommend taking lots of gravity readings during fermentation. And everytime you do you push oxygen into the beer.

Revvy said:

I sure the hell don't agree. All that sloshing is pretty much going to oxygentate the beer. Oxygen + fermented beer = liquid cardboard.

I would bottle it before you move them. That way they're in a sealed, air tight, environment.You can still let them condition.

It's not an airtight environment.

The only time it is truly safe to move a beer not in a keg or bottles is within the first 24-48 hours after yeast pitch. Before fermentation has really taken off. That way the yeast will use any of the oxygen that gets in there during the fermentation process.

Otherwise it's a crapshoot as to how the beer will turn out. Bottle it then move it.

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I sure don't agree. I've moved many gallons of fermenting wort across the country. Zero oxidization per taste.

Sloshing in a fermentor with airlock or blowoff tube is going to have positive pressure. Very, very little chance of oxidization. Since the airlock/blowoff tube is a one way by design/concept, no oxidization occurs.

Special Hops said:

I don't bottle anymore.

Look I am not saying there is no risk. But with some good foresight it can be minimized.

As adamant you are about oxygen getting into your beer. You sure do recommend taking lots of gravity readings during fermentation. And everytime you do you push oxygen into the beer.

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No I don't advocate taking lots of gravity readings. Maybe you've never truly read what I've written. I advocate taking a gravity reading if you have any doubt as to what your beer is doing, if you are panicking.

Or if you are choosing to move you beer, and want to know if fermentation is complete (which is standard practice straight out of palmer and papazain.) But if you are long primarying I've stated repeatedly that any grav readings really aren't necessary then unless you like to know the abv of a beer, and take one pre-yeast pitch and at bottling time.

I've posted repeatedly that I only take 2 readings (not counting any pre-post boil reading in AG) Just once before yeast pitch, and once at bottling, because I'm not nervous, and I trust my yeast, so I don't take any others, unless I'm planning to secondary which is rare.

That's hardly recommending taking lots of gravity readings is it?

Like I said, the ops got his info, the rest of this is just a waste of time.

Well I certainly haven't read all of 30,000 of your posts. But I have seen you argue for taking more gravity readings and saying it will not be any riskier then taking less.

But you are right. This is pretty pointless. Forgive me for disagreeing with the self appointed grand guru of HBT.

To the OP. Yes it is better if you don't move it. But if you seal it up and keep sloshing at a minimum I don't think it will be a huge issue n

I wouldn't do it because yo're really going to stir up a lot of trub. Letting it sit for an hour or a day isn't going to get you back to where you were after letting your beer sit in one place for several weeks. Part of the reason a lot of us let it ferment for three weeks or more is so we get a clearer beer.

Wow off topic for a second can we put the gloves down guys ( Special hops and Revvy ) no need to argue we need to give the op the best possible advice we can as a community.

Why don't you just make your buddy come visit you?

I expect you could move the primary without causing too much damage, but you could also rack the beer into a keg or something, and fill the head space with CO2, if you happen to have a keg setup, and then bottle out of the keg. this would get you the added benefit of not sloshing all the trub around.

Revvy said:

Don't you fill your bottles all the way til some of the beer spills out over the side, then pull the bottle out from under the wand to set the headspace, and then leave the caps lightly sitting on top of the bottles for 5 minutes or so? That IS purging the headspace with co2, both the co2 already present in solution, which is pushing up and out with the beer AND any that is quickly generated by the yeast eating the sugar you just fed them. You ever had any caps pop off before you cap them, or do a little dance on top of the bottle, or seen little starsan bubbles? That's co2......If you bottle correctly there should be little if any oxygen left in the headspace of the bottles when you cap it.

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What you described is just as bad, probably worse, than transporting a fermenter on a 20 minute car ride (assuming you're not going off road with it). Unless you are pre-purging with CO2, you going to have significant oxygen contact even with whatever protection is coming from CO2 coming out of solution.

JKoravos said:

What you described is just as bad, probably worse, than transporting a fermenter on a 20 minute car ride (assuming you're not going off road with it). Unless you are pre-purging with CO2, you going to have significant oxygen contact even with whatever protection is coming from CO2 coming out of solution.

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That's standard bottling process straight out of Papazaian and palmer, I don't know where you've gotten your info from. It's been discussed and covered here and all over ad nausuem.

Like this,

Breworganic said:

Now we are ready to fill our bottles! We'll set up our siphon as described in the previous section, and attach a bottle filling wand to the end of the siphon hose. The bottle filling wand is about 18" long, and has a special valve at the tip which allows liquid to flow through it when pressed down, but stops when lifted. This will help us avoid making a huge mess, but it is still a good idea to have a small pan or an old towel under the bottles and a small amount of spilling is inevitable.

With the bottle wand we fill the bottles one by one until all the beer has been bottled. The bottles may be capped immediately, or try this tip to reduce the amount of oxygen in the bottles:

HINT: Instead of crimping the caps immediately after filling the bottles, place the caps loosely on the bottles and wait 15 minutes before crimping the caps down with the bottle capper. This will allow CO2 to fill the space at the top of the bottle and will help to purge the oxygen from the bottles.....

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Or wikibooks

If you are siphoning, use a siphon lock, that pinches the hose, to control flow. If you are using a spigot, attach a length of hose, so that filling starts at the bottom of the bottle. It's important not to splash the beer around, because doing you will aerate the beer. After filling, loosely place the caps on the bottles. Wait about 15 minutes before crimping the caps so that escaping and newly formed carbon dioxide can push the oxygen out of the top of the bottle.

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And filling the bottle all the way to the top to set the headspace.





But again, wtf does this have to do with the OP's question, besides just trolling for an argument?

Dang. I didn't think this would turn into a HBT ideological dichotomy! At the end of the day, I decided not to transport. Reading all of this merely gave me a headache only curable by drinking more home brew. Ultimately, I only read a couple posts before leaving my house. The brew in question is a Harvest Pumpkin Ale. With the large amount of sediment this brew leaves behind I decided the car ride would indeed kick up a ton of trub resulting in a super cloudy beer. I greatly appreciate all the input, and hopefully I didn't ruin any friendships.:cross: Kind of wild how this turned in to an argument eerily similar to the "primary vs secondary" debate. Either way, thanks for the help. A lot of good info to read over.

I would think this would constitute open container! Sure, it's it's not technically correct but I'd hate to have to explain it to a LEO.

I think you made the right decision in not moving it, I know I wouldn't.

Lol. Guess I had few homebrews in me last night.

My whole point is that I would be much more concerned about stirring up turb then oxidation.

Revvy said:

That's standard bottling process straight out of Papazaian and palmer, I don't know where you've gotten your info from. It's been discussed and covered here and all over ad nausuem.

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I got it from textbooks and classes on mass transfer and gas diffusion.

The opportunity for oxygen to contact and dissolve into a beer sitting in a closed fermenter being transported is far less than the amount of oxygen that is going to dissolve into your beer in a typical bottling session.

The reason it doesn't matter is that as long as you still have some live/active yeast in there when you bottle they should pick up the oxygen before it has the chance to do noticeable damage. Same goes for transporting it before bottling, if that would even cause any significant O2 uptake, it should be picked up in the bottle conditioning process.

wow.

just..... wow.

Heres what I take from this thread...3 things

1)The best solution is obviously not to risk moving it. There is a chance of you ruining your beer.

2)With that said...it is possible to transport it and your beer to turn out good...there is also a chance of you hurting the final product.

3)Someone in this thread has a Napoleon Complex

Jayman931 said:

3)Someone in this thread has a Napoleon Complex

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You got me Jayman931. Guilty as charged.

binkman said:

You got me Jayman931. Guilty as charged.

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I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think you just jumped on a grenade. Hmm...pretty cool!

Wort doesn't show signs of ferment: don't worry (but open it up and take a reading, that's cool)
Don't secondary and leave it on the cake for a month: don't worry
Drive it a little ways before pushing it into an oxygen filled bottle 50+ times: OMG Your beer is the worzt!!!!

The hell?

Best.
Thread.
Ever.

idahodal said:

wort doesn't show signs of ferment: Don't worry (but open it up and take a reading, that's cool)
don't secondary and leave it on the cake for a month: Don't worry
drive it a little ways before pushing it into an oxygen filled bottle 50+ times: Omg your beer is the worzt!!!!

The hell?

Best.
Thread.
Ever.

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+1

More trolling.

It's valid advice to not drive around with your beer to go bottle somewhere else. When I move my fermenter up to where I bottle keg it gets sloshed around unless I'm very careful, I can't imagine a car suspension is impervious to whatever is out there on the road.

Largest open container...ever.... Honest officer, I'm headed to a friends to bottle!!!

Revvy drop it.