I am curious whether people think that bottles or cans are more fragile. I am shipping back home a bunch of beer in a box while on vacation. Limited supplies (a little bit of bubble wrap, paper bags, a bunch of ziploc bags). I needed a cooler while I was on vacation, so I picked up a small padded cooler. It is the perfect for fitting and padding 8 cans nice and tight (and a bottle across the top) inside the box. Or alternatively, I can pack about 4x 22oz bombers in the cooler horizontally. The cooler fills about half the box and box will hold the rest of the beer loosely. However, I am shipping back enough stuff that everything is packed tightly. So which do you think is more fragile? The cans or the bottles? Would you pack the bottles or the cans in the cooler? Right now, I have all the bottles wrapped in bubble wrap. The cans are locked together in the hard plastic 4-pack rings or yokes. I was just going to stick all 8 cans in the cooler and not bother wrapping them since they are protected in the padded cooler (but I can separate them out if you think I should) https://newrepublic.com/article/123033/story-behind-those-frustrating-craft-beer-six-pack-holders
The tighter the better. If you can, put the bombers in your luggage wrapped up in like 8 layers of clothing or use extra clothing you have hanging around as the padding/filling in the box. Those two day old dirty draws might just help you save a beer.
Out of packages I have sent I have had 2 cans break. (out of about 200 packages) I have received three packages with broken cans (about 200) I have never sent or received a broken bottle but have received a few that leaked out of the cap a bit (less than 1/8th of the beer). May be due to people thinking bottles are fragile and packing them better than they pack cans. Do you have some thin bubble wrap you could put into your soft cooler between the cans so the cans don't rub on each other? or put them in socks and then packed in cooler? I have used that type of cooler type before in a beer box shipment, but I had padding between the cans.
I've had cans explode sitting in my truck before I could get them to UPS, it was really hot...my mistake, won't happen again
