After racking the beer off the yeast cake into a second carboy, would adding 1/2 to 1 cup of priming sugar solution (but not immediately bottling the beer) be enough to initiate secondary fermentation of sorts such that a nice protective layer of co2 forms? I want to make a blonde ale and add oak malt whiskey chips and let it age for a few weeks before bottling. I'm going after a batch that comes close to "Bellhaven's Speyside Oak aged Blonde Ale". Anyone ever try to amake this beer? If so, what Wyeast variant would you use? Thanks in advance for any advice!
Technique: Secondary fermenters should be as large (volume wise) as the beer you're racking in there. Leave as little head space as possible. Don't add sugar to try to make up for headspace. The purpose of secondary is to get the beer off the yeast cake for long term conditioning, to add bugs, oak, or fruit. I'm not familiar with Bellhaven's Blonde, so others can hopefully help you nail down a recipe.
Thank you! PS--> If you are severely limiting headspace and not adding any sugar then its not really a secondary fermentation, correct?
Most people would just call it secondary. The term secondary fermentation is thrown in there pretty interchangeably. You can ferment or just store in your beer in this fermenter. With brewing, we're usually infecting a beer for secondary or we are adding oak for long term bulk conditioning, or both. You could add other stuff (fermentable or not), or find a way to stress your yeast to finish fermenting in secondary. Nothing else comes to mind. When you get into wine you do tertiary fermentation etc. etc. Most of that's just conditioning.
