Advice - Transfering Imperial Stout to Secondary / Bottling

[DayLghtBreaks]

Long long time lurker, first time poster. I've been brewing for about 5 years, probably about 30-40 batches under my belt. This site has been a world of knowledge!

I brewed a giant imperial stout (5 gallons) about a month ago and it's about time to transfer to the secondary, pending the FG is done.

I have a abundant supply of corny kegs and I figure that this would work well for a secondary. I've never used a corny keg as a secondary before. I've had wood chips soaking in bourbon for the last 2 weeks and I'm planning on putting the wood chips in a big SS tea infuser and dumping in about 16oz of bourbon with the beer.

When I transfer it, I plan to purge out all the oxygen, then hook up the "gas in" line and have the hose on the other end submerged in sanitizer, to let all the C02 out while it sits in the fermentation chamber.

After about 4-6 months I plan to bottle this beer. I know i'll probably need to add additional yeast to carbonate/bottle condition.

How should I go about adding the yeast and priming sugar to the keg when it's ready? How much and what kind of yeast will I need for the 5 gallons?

I would like to bottle straight out of the keg via a counter pressure bottle filler.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[DownHillonWater]

Do you have a CO2 tank? Why not carbonate from the tank if so...

 

[Braufessor]

+1 on force carbonating and using a beer gun if you can.... I have found that bottle priming very big beers can be a struggle.

If you do want to bottle prime..... what I do with my saisons is I fill a bottling keg with star san and push it out. I boil up a priming sugar solution for appropriate volumes of pressure. I pop the top on the empty keg, put in the priming solution and quick put the lid back on. I then jump the beer from the secondary keg to the purged keg that has the priming sugar. Open the PRV and push the beer in with CO2.... that also will help mix it. close PRV after transfer. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so after transfer. Then use a beer gun and pressure from CO2 to fill bottles.

Also... 16 ounces of bourbon in 5 gallons is A LOT in my experience. I would advise adding 8 ounces and letting it sit for a few days and sampling it. If you think it is way too low on bourbon, add another 4- 8 ounces. You can always put more in, but you can't take it out.

*** I would also add the yeast with the priming solution to the keg..... kind of depends on alcohol. Maybe 1056 or USO5 ideally. But, if alcohol is too high.... might need to go with something more.

 

[shoengine]

I'm confused. Are you going to use a bottle of CO2 or are you going to bottle condition?

Are you going to put the wood chips in the corny for 4-6 months?

Are you expecting to transfer the beer to the corny prior to FG?

 

[DayLghtBreaks]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah I want to bottle condition this beer rather than carb with CO2. I want to keep some of these bottles for a years and see how it develops.

I like the idea of transfering to another keg with the priming sugar and bottling yeast.

I’ve read that 16oz was a good amount for 5 gallons, but maybe I’ll do 8 oz for now and add more if I feel it needs it. I was going to leave the wood chips in the secondary until I’ve reach the amount of oak I want.