Bbottling temp/priming sugar question

[de5m0mike]

I fermented my beer (India Pale Ale) for a week at about 65ºF. Yeast was Safale 05 with recommended fermentation temperature: 59º-75ºF. I then let the temp rise to about 70º for a few days to help the yeast finish up. I then cooled the beer back down to about 55º for a week and then racked to secondary. All in all it was 31 days between the brew date and the racking date. I also added my dry hop addition at this time. So now my beer has been sitting with the dry hops in it at about 52º for the last 2 weeks. I would like to bottle tomorrow but I'm confused about what I should do with my beer. Should I warm it back to the bottle conditioning temp before bottling or leave it as is. I don't really want to move it, which I would have to do to raise the temp, and disturb the sediment if I don't have to. The second part of my question is how do I calculate how much priming sugar to use for this 5 gal batch? In the past I've always added the whole 5oz pgk but I'v found my beers to be slightly over carbonated. I've looked at the programs that calculate this for me but I'm not sure what temp to use since my wart has been at several different temps since brewing?

 

[Andy_LV]

dont warm it up. try using this to calculate priming rate:
http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

its US gallons...

hope it helps.

P.S.

I think you have to use "last stable temp" - like, if you chill your brew to 50 and keep it that way, use this temp.

 

[jigidyjim]

You want to use the "highest completed fermentation temp" for your priming calculator. In your case, the 70 degrees. This is because the co2 will have escaped during this stage. If you were at 70, then went down to 50, and it was still fermenting, then it would be a complicated answer because much of the co2 will have escaped but some would still be trapped by the continued fermentation at 50.

Anyway, don't worry about warming up the primary for bottling, but make sure your bottles get up to 70 degrees after filling, otherwise they won't carbonate in any predictable amount of time...

 

[de5m0mike]

Thanks. That the best explanation I've read so far.