Triply pitched BW, bottling time: how much priming sugar?

Hi there folks,

I brewed "Brewing Better Beer"'s 7-yo barleywine at the beggining of July. The mash temperature was a few degrees too high, so it had a hard time reaching a decent FG (OG: 1.120, FG: 1.032). I pitched three times; once with some Wyeast yeast, then 3 weeks after that with WL San Diego, then 3 weeks after that with WL English Dry (the one I intended to pitch in a first place). It's been sitting in secondary for 3 more weeks now.

I'm going to bottle today; IIRC what is in the recipe, I should use half the usual amount of priming sugar for this big one, i.e., around 80g in 1L of water. As I pitched the English Dry less than a month ago, I'm not planning to pitch more yeast.

Does that sound right, in particular for the amount of priming sugar?

Thanks everyone!

PS: If anyone can have a look at the recipe in the book, I'd be glad to know. I can't seem to find the book right now...

1.120 to 1.032 isn't bad attenuation per-say; you're at 73% apparent attenuation. Depending on what the grist makeup was (like how much crystal malt your used) you're probably near the max fermentation for the given sugar composition of the wort.

I'd prime with the normal amount of sugar you'd use to get 5 gallons of beer. If you deliberately want softer carbonation, use less. The idea of using half the normal amount of priming sugar simply because it is a big beer doesn't make any sense. The only time this sort of reasoning makes sense is if you're going for a softer mouthfeel or if the beer may restart fermenting in the bottles (beyond the sugar you are adding).

Since there is a lot of alcohol in there, I'd prime using a half packet of dry yeast.

Is it finished?

You pitched the SanDiego into about an 11% beer. Assuming you just pitched the tube. it will not reproduce in that environment, and a lot of cells probably died when you pitched it. However, I suspect there are still a few (million) that survived and are slowly working on the remaining sugars.

If you bottle now, they will keep working slowly. If you don't let it reach FG before bottling, you can't possibly know how much sugar to prime with.

I'd leave it at least another month and check the FG again. If it's gone down, leave it another month.

Thank you all for your answers!