I live in a motor home and often move around a bit. Im scheduled to leave when my secondary will be about a week in. I’m wondering if the sloshing around spurring travel is going to aerated it? I was hoping that there would have been enough co2 built up in the headspace of the fermenter that there wouldn’t be any oxygen in there to worry about. This brew has to go with me. The alternative would be to leave it with a friend for three additional weeks on a 85-90 degree room.
what is the gravity? how close to finished are you?
Depends what your trying to make. If its just alcohol then go for it. If you want to make quality product i would time your brewing when you will be stationary for 2 or 3 weeks.
We bought a condo and sold our MH. Sure do miss it. We were never full time but did snowbird in ours for close to half the year.
I did brew in our MH but never when there wasn’t enough time for it to finish and get kegged. I brought along a couple of cornie kegs and a jockey box.
@squeegeethree 's question is a good one. If you don’t have gravity readings just tell us about your beer. How long in primary and how long in secondary? If it’s a NB kit which one? Unless you can secure it well a glass carboy seems risky while moving. I know how things get bounced around in a MH on the road.
It’s NB peanut butter cup stout. I started two days ago (10/16). The original gravity was 1.080. It is in a fermenting bucket. It’s steady bubbling now. I leave on November 3rd. It will be 18 days in by then, that’s why I’m assuming it will be about a week into secondary by the time I leave. When I bought this kit it was going to all happen at my son’s house but then after learning about fermenting temps we realized his place is too hot (he has one window unit, florida, still hitting upper 80 degrees down here). So, we started it in my motor home. Then, yesterday I started learning more about aeration. If the bucket goes with us it will travel in the car with me (my husband drives the MH) I’m wondering if we should just (1) shorten the full secondary and bottle early knowing there would be more sediment but worried that could cause off flavor and/or bottles exploding if there too much yeast transferred. Or (2) leave it at my son’s house in secondary for three additional weeks knowing it may get warm in the day time, or (3) take it with me on the road and risk oxidation. Ide really prefer to take it with me for temp control and not having it hang out in secondary for four weeks. Since its in a bucket there is more surface area. Any possibility the co2 would fill that headspace during secondary? I’m traveling about 3 hrs. If I take the secondary to my son’s house instead it still has to go on a 20 minute ride over there. Certainly I will plan better next time!
OG was 1.080 when I started two days ago. Please read my longer post as I tried to answer everyone at once. Thank you!
We’re definitely going for quality. Wasn’t anticipating this brewing to happen in my motor home. Due to temp control we started it here. Then I started learning about aeration after we started. It’s our first home brew so a huge learning experience.
I say, leave it at yer sons house… Fermenting will be complete… no need to worry about temp control then… but … if you can do a swamp cooler type setup to keep it a bit cooler… thats better… Riding around in a car/MH… You’ll have too worry about O2… that would not be good…
Sneezles61
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I wouldn’t secondary in a bucket. If that’s all you have leave it in the primary for the duration. .080 ain’t going to be done by 11/4. Leave it in the MH cool until you leave by them leave it at the son’s house the warm temps probably won’t matter much and maybe the place will be cooler . The reason you secondary is to help it clear which wont happen driving it around.
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Welcome to the hobby @April! The concern with bottling early would be that the yeast hadn’t yet consumed all the sugar. They’d continue to metabolize it creating CO2 and causing dangerous bottle bombs. I’d not travel with the beer and agree leave it in the primary at your friend’s until it’s done. I brewed before a month long trip last winter and left it in the brewhouse and it was just fine.
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