So I made this on Sunday and have a few questions. I didn't RTFM before brewing otherwise I would have asked these questions beforehand.
The instructions said to add these right at the end of the boil, which I did. It then said to run the wort through a strainer to get some of the sediment out. It made no mention of the oak chips after telling me to add them at the end of the brew.
To me, it made no sense to add them for the approximately 10-15 minutes that it took to cool the beer from boil to 70 degrees, so I just poured the wort into the carboy, chips and all. Pitched yeast and put it in the closet to ferment. Searching today, I found this thread about it...
My first couple of brews have ended up being cloudy in the end, so I'd already planned on racking to secondary for the clarity (and yes, I am well aware of the mixed opinions on secondaries, lol). After reading comments in this thread, it sounds like that is the ideal time to add the oak chips, and adding them during fermentation was not ideal as the yeast will hide the oak/bourbon flavor.
So question #1 is: should I add more oak chips when I rack to secondary, or will that make the flavor too oak-y or bourbon-y??
Second question: The recipe says to use maple syrup as the priming sugar during bottling. Does this sounds like a good idea? They recommended using honey as the priming sugar for their Everyday IPA and I ended up with an IPA with honey aftertaste. I'd like to avoid a maple syrup tasting beer, and I bought priming sugar at my LHBS. If I do use the priming sugar, how much should I use for a one-gallon batch?
Thanks!