RIS Primary, Secondary and Aging questions

After considerable searching for answers in existing posts, I have some questions about Russian imperial stouts. I am trying to work out a timeline for my stout. I'm planning on making it a six-month project, and I want it to be awesome.

1) How long in the primary? I was thinking two months to make sure the yeast have plenty of time to clean up.

2) Secondary: I am planning on oaking this bad boy with bourbon soaked oak chips, but I am also planning on bulk aging in the secondary for around 2 months. Is the best thing to do to rack to secondary and wait 6 weeks, then drop in the chips (in a nylon bag) and bourbon for the final two weeks before bottling? I doubt I want two months worth of oak stank going into the bottle. Also open to the idea of forgoing secondary and leaving the thing in primary for the whole 4 months (oaking in bag for last two weeks) before bottle conditioning for two more months. I know that's a lot of variables, but thoughts on all this? I want a dank stout for the cold winter nights.

I did something similar a year or so ago, it was good.

I would recommend 6-8 weeks in primary and then rack to secondary and add chops for 3-4 weeks.

Soak the chips in bourbon for longer than you would think. I believe i did two weeks but should have gone longer. Also dump the bourbon you soaked the chips in to the fermenter. When I did my RIS the bourbon flavor faded quickly and I feel had I soaked longer and dumped more of the bourbon in it would have lasted longer and been better. I could taste a lot of wood but was missing some if the bourbon flavors I was after.

Let us know how you progress

Cheers!

I can't help you with the timing of the oak and bourbon other than to say your plan sounds reasonanable, but here is what I am currently doing. About five weeks ago I brewed an RIS and primaried it for four weeks. I could have gone six weeks, but probably wouldn't have left it two months - not that it would have hurt anything, just don't think it is necessary. I transferred it to a secondary a week ago and plan to leave it there for the next three to four months at which time I will bottle it into bombers. I figure it will be ready to drink at the six month mark or shortly thereafter. Good luck.

I soaked half a spiral oak stick, .3 oz cacoa nibs, and half a vanilla bean in about a cup of bourbon for around 20 minutes. Added the whole concoction to an RIS. Let it sit about 3 weeks then bottled. All the flavors came through really well. The oak was a little on the strong side. I'd do 1/4 stick next time.