Derp
Well-Known Member
Howdy. I'm new to the hobby/obsession and I've learned a lot here. Cheers.
My first batch (ESB, extract kit from MoreBeer) has been in the primary for 8 days now. I'm flying to California in 3 weeks for my daughter's wedding and some friends have been following my brewing saga and they've asked me to bring a few bottles to sample. I don't plant to bottle it until right before I leave and I'm worried about packing a bunch of bottle-conditioning beers in my checked baggage. I'm sure I can pack them to avoid making a mess if they break, but the combination of carbonating beer that's under pressure and below-normal (I assume) air pressure in the plane's hold have me a little worried. Has anyone done this before? I've flown with commercially bottled beers before, but never a science experiment like the one I'm conducting in my bathtub at the moment. I have nightmarish visions of exploding bottles, panicked TSA inspectors and 5 years in Gitmo running through my mind.
Brewed my second batch (American IPA kit from MoreBeer) with Safale-S04 last night and it's going crazy in my fermentation chiller (bathtub) at the moment. It's in a 6-gallon Better Bottle and I had to fashion an emergency blow-off tube after hearing strange sounds coming from the bathroom a few hours ago. The ESB was active, but this guy is going crazy.
The second batch went much more smoothly than the first. The ESB took nearly 2 hours to cool with an immersion chiller because the tap water here in south Texas isn't very cold. It was painful watching all that perfectly good water going down my kitchen sink, so this time I purchased a few hose adapters at Home Depot and connected the return line to a sprinkler in my garden. Now I can water my veggies and cool my wort at the same time.
I also froze a case of 16-ounce bottles of water and chucked them in a Rubbermaid tub that I then placed the 8-gallon kettle into after boiling. It ate through most of the bottles quickly, but I got the temperature down to 70 degrees in about 30 minutes. I'm continuing to re-freeze the bottles and drop them into my bathtub (3 every couple of hours) and now my water+T-shirt cooling system is able to keep the carboys at a steady 64-66 degrees in a 78-degree room. Without the ice bottles I had difficulty maintaining 72 degrees while the ESB was fermenting.
Thanks for all the good advice!
My first batch (ESB, extract kit from MoreBeer) has been in the primary for 8 days now. I'm flying to California in 3 weeks for my daughter's wedding and some friends have been following my brewing saga and they've asked me to bring a few bottles to sample. I don't plant to bottle it until right before I leave and I'm worried about packing a bunch of bottle-conditioning beers in my checked baggage. I'm sure I can pack them to avoid making a mess if they break, but the combination of carbonating beer that's under pressure and below-normal (I assume) air pressure in the plane's hold have me a little worried. Has anyone done this before? I've flown with commercially bottled beers before, but never a science experiment like the one I'm conducting in my bathtub at the moment. I have nightmarish visions of exploding bottles, panicked TSA inspectors and 5 years in Gitmo running through my mind.
Brewed my second batch (American IPA kit from MoreBeer) with Safale-S04 last night and it's going crazy in my fermentation chiller (bathtub) at the moment. It's in a 6-gallon Better Bottle and I had to fashion an emergency blow-off tube after hearing strange sounds coming from the bathroom a few hours ago. The ESB was active, but this guy is going crazy.
The second batch went much more smoothly than the first. The ESB took nearly 2 hours to cool with an immersion chiller because the tap water here in south Texas isn't very cold. It was painful watching all that perfectly good water going down my kitchen sink, so this time I purchased a few hose adapters at Home Depot and connected the return line to a sprinkler in my garden. Now I can water my veggies and cool my wort at the same time.
I also froze a case of 16-ounce bottles of water and chucked them in a Rubbermaid tub that I then placed the 8-gallon kettle into after boiling. It ate through most of the bottles quickly, but I got the temperature down to 70 degrees in about 30 minutes. I'm continuing to re-freeze the bottles and drop them into my bathtub (3 every couple of hours) and now my water+T-shirt cooling system is able to keep the carboys at a steady 64-66 degrees in a 78-degree room. Without the ice bottles I had difficulty maintaining 72 degrees while the ESB was fermenting.
Thanks for all the good advice!