Say I am doing a brew demonstration at a campsite in the woods. I have plenty of room and structures to both brew and later rack and bottle, but no way to safely store the wort there during fermentation.
Will it do any harm to transport the carboy(s) with freshly pitched wort the 30 miles to my home from the site, and then back to the site after ferm to demo racking and bottling? I know as a given I will have to let the yeast settle again after I get there, but I’m wondering if that much movement will introduce and off flavors or anything.
My biggest concern would be oxidation from splashing on the return trip after fermentation. Other than making sure it was secure in the car so I didn’t end up with a floorboard full of fun, of course. If it’s in a carboy, I’d also want to keep it out of the light (t-shirt, towel, etc.).
Sounds like a bad idea to travel with a post fermentation beer somewhere to bottle it. Like mentioned, it will be difficult/impossible to keep it from splashing and introducing O2.
ETA: take your bottling supplies with you. Demonstrate with water the bottling process with 6 bottles.
I do not think that transporting your wort would be a problem at all and it solves your logistic problem very nicely. You do not say how much wort you want to transport. However if it is only five gallons I would fill a carboy completely full, then place a few layers of plastic wrap over the top. This can be held in place with a couple of good secure elastic bands. You may get a tiny bit of leakage but since the carboy is full you would have practically no splashing.
If you added yeast to the wort and it’s fermenting, it should be fine. The positive CO2 pressure will be pushing oxygen and everything else up and out with an airlock attached.
Hopefully the temperatures where you are travelling is condusive to fermentation.
If you are transporting it without adding yeast, can you probably rack it to a keg and seal/purge it with CO2 for the car ride?
