To open starter kit before travel or not?

You will hear differing opinions here. My personal preference is to package my beers within 3 weeks of pitching the yeast (typically much less than 3 weeks).

If you have ingredients for your first batch you should open your package and refrigerate/freeze certain ingredients:

• Put the hops in your freezer
• Put the yeast in your refrigerator

Let me be the first to recommend that you buy a Homebrewing book (e.g., How to Brew by John Palmer) and read it cover to cover prior to brewing your first batch.

Best of luck with your first batch of beer.

Cheers!

 

I'd also add that you shouldn't assume the stuff in the boxes is sanitary already. Opening it isn't going to make it any dirtier that it already is really.

 

For sanitation, yes, be careful. But don't worry because brewers know that yeast are like dogs and will react accordingly. They do not like stress. If you are stressed your beer will suffer.

Everything pre-boil is, well, boiled. The ingredients will be quite sanitized after a 60 minute soak at 212F.
Everything post boil is much more susceptible to contamination. Especially the time between when the wort has cooled to the right temperature for adding yeast. If there are too many undesirable bugs, bacteria and what not lurking in your cold wort then there is a risk they will eat that delicious malty sugar water before your yeast get a fighting chance. Then you get vinegar. Or some other funk gunk.

So
Hot side your in the clear
Cold side, be aware and be vigilant.
But do not panic.

In the meantime, what @JackHorzempa said.
Cheers

 

A month and a half is upper end of my limits, but Ive gone longer without bad effects (it was a dark ale). I’ve lagered for longer.

You’ll come back and be distracted for a week before you get to the next step, bottling... a time commitment.

Yes, anything post boil requires vigilance.

True story: my first batch ever... when I put the airlock in the lid of the bucket, the rubber gasket pushed through and fell in. I washed my hands and reached in (I didn’t have a long handled spoon yet). Then I realized what I did. I called the store in a panic. The advice was the best: “relax, there’s nothing you can do but have a beer and wait. No matter what happens, you’ll get beer that you made.”

You’ll see that advice here a lot: “RAHAHB”, relax and have a home brew.

By the way, that beer was the best beer ever. There’s nothing like your first home brew, even if it’s gross, you made it.

Cheers and welcome on board!

 

Open it and check the dates on the yeast, grain and hops while you have time to do something about it. It's probably not as much an issue with busy online retailers when compared with local homebrew stores, but some less popular kits may sit for a while and ingredients can get stale. Don't wait until brew day (or after brew day) to discover that you've got old stuff.

The first three threads in this search link will give you some good info:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...?q=freshness&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=8