Moving Tips

[Talgrath]

So, next month I'm moving...yay. I've never moved with my brewing equipment before, I've emptied all of my carboys and cleaned everything out, but now I need to pack the equipment up. Any tips for packing up the following stuff?

2 6.5 gallon plastic carboys
bottling bucket
brewing bucket
hydrometer
glass thermometer
bottle caps
bubbler airlocks
10 gallon circular cooler mash tun

 

[mikescooling]

I just moved and lost my plate chiller. i lost it because I separated it from the rest of the brewery. Clearly mark all brewery boxes and keep them together. I used bubble wrap for things like flasks, but again I bubble wrapped the stir bars in the same box. Just buy a big box of packing tape and a tape gun and tape everything down so it can't move around. pack the boxes full and tight. Get a truck and some friends to help. When you unpack empty the boxes as much as you can then break them down and save or throw away, so you don't loose anything by thinking the box was a trash box when it had good stuff in it. keep the faith; moving sucks, but it brings new life and new beginnings.

 

[Brew_Dude41]

As a former mover of 8 years (household, HVP, and Commercial) and a guy that just had to do it again in April, I will give you the following tips for anyone that needs to move:

• Call your you local moving companies and see if any offer used packing supplies for free or discounted prices. If they do, get real boxes and use them up as much as you can. The shapes and sizes of the boxes have been pretty much standardized for a reason, they fit/stack very well together and mke it much easier to fill that moving truck. Get more than you think you need (no really, you are probably wrong and will need more). If you don't have a moving company around you most self storage units have new boxes for sale as well.
• Get plenty of white packing paper. If you can get it from the moving company at #25-50 bundles. Crushing 4-5 sheets into big loose wads will work wonders for creating cushions for your breakable materials. Fill the bottom of a box with 2-4 wads (depending on the box) and place a layer of individually wrapped breakables on top, and then fill holes with more wads of paper. Put a layer of more wadded paper over that and you can create another on top of it. Heavier on the bottom light on top. I never used bubble wrap, but if that is what you prefer go for it.
• Dish barrels and 'waredrobe' boxes are great for everything. Dish barrels are double (sometimes 3x) corregated boxes that when they are packed tight I often used a base to stack or step on.

I had close to the same equipment to move and got it all to fit into 1 waredrobe box. All of the misc stuff "hydrometer, glass thermometer, bottle caps, bubbler airlocks" got wrapped up into and went into the brew bucket with the lid on and that got bottom of the box. I had a glass carboy that got put into the bottling bucket (paper wads on the bottom) and that bucket went in the bottom as well. I had other misc things shoved into the spaces (and of course wads of paper) around just keep things from shifting. I then had space to put my plasic better bottles and other misc items. Your 10 g cooler should be able to fit in that space as well. You might have to take the lid off and put a carboy in it if it fits well--all depends on how you fit it.

It is a big box that won't fit in a car, but I have a pick up and we had movers with a full size van doing the move, so I went for the ease of everything in one box together.

 

[BeerBDrew]

Just moved and my advice is to move your brewing equipment separately if possible in your personal vehicle. Nesting carboys inside plastic buckets to restrict movement works well.

 

[AkTom]

You can inventory each box and number them. Then when you get to the new place check the inventory sheet to get critical boxes first.

 

[Talgrath]

Lots of good advice, thanks everyone.