Transporting bottles being conditioned

I'm leaving for Mexico in 15 days or so. I don't want to haul all my equipment but I need to leave soon. Can I brew a batch and dare haul it after bottling? It's a 7 hour drive. I'm brewing a Hef.

 

You can brew the batch and haul it. It would be a tight time frame, and the beer might not be able to age to give you a great taste. However, what I would recommend doing is, creating a yeast starter for a day or so, to get the number of yeast up really really high. Which should speed up your fermentation process to a few days.

I would then boil some water with your priming sugar, and put it in the bottling bucket before you siphon your beer to your bottling bucket.

Then when you bottle it, I would suggest wrapping each bottle in a little news paper, and then place it in a 24 pack box (one with the dividers in it like sam adams or something).

I would then put it in a place for the remaining days to carbonate, and the carbonation should be done after a week. When you do put them in your car, just to air on the side of caution, I would wrap each box that has the beer in one of those big black trash bags. One of the ones that are meant to have yard waste, so that it is harder to puncture the plastic should one of the bottles explode.

 

What where you thinking could go wrong? I guess if you left them sitting in a hot car that would not help them at all. Make sure to not over-prime so no bottle bombs.

 

After bottling it'll be fine to transport. It may need a few days for the yeast to settle down after.

 

Thanks. I thought I was asking for trouble.

 

Since the OP got his answer I have a slight threadjack. What about shipping newly bottled beer? Should you wait until it finishes carbing up, or is it safe to ship right after it's bottled?

 

Or to be on the safe side use a large cooler with a little Ice to keep then cool on the road then let sit a few days to settle the yeast

 

If it were me, I'd wait. Rather have it blow up in my closet than the fed ex truck. Why ship it earlier anyways? The recipient won't be able to drink it until it's done

 

Also, during the bottle carbing phase, the yeast are suspended, and when they are shaken up, by being handled (even though the box says fragile), the CO2 may become un-suspended in the liquid, due to heat and shaking.

I would wait till at least a week after bottle carbing