High final gravity = less priming sugar?

[velosim]

First time posting here but have a question I couldn't find any help with. I just did my first batch of beer, a pale ale, which had a starting gravity of 1.056. After a week in the primary bucket I had 3 consecutive days of hydro readings of 1.022. Based on the airlock (I know...) it seemed like fermentation got started after around 10 hours but for some reason stalled out on me at some point. I just transferred to secondary in a carboy and I am hoping a little more activity will happen. Assuming there is no more fermentation and my FG is 1.022 when I go to bottle in a few weeks, should I add less priming sugar to reduce the risk of excess carbonation? Or is it the case that once fermentation stops in the beer, the excess sugars don't add to the carbonation?

Thanks for your help.

 

[philrose]

welcome to the forum.

High final gravity after 7 days means add more time as you've told yourself. Although, a lot of new brewers have trouble getting past 1.020. I'd test your hydrometer in distilled water at the temp its calibrated to, wait til day 10, then take one last sample before making that decision.

Cheers.

 

[spaceboi13]

It sounds like your fermentation was going fine. Give the yeast some time to finish doing it's thing and check your FG when it's closer to bottling time.

 

[ajf]

Either the fermentation has finished or it hasn't.
If it has finished, then the cause of the high FG is unfermentables in the beer, and you should not reduce the amount of priming sugar (unless you want under-carbonated beer).
If it hasn't finished you don't want to bottle yet, as this would cause over-carbonation or possibly bottle bombs.
If it was fermented on the cool side, you may be able to restart the fermentation by moving it into a warmer location. If the gravity is still the same in another week or so, you can assume that fermentation is finished, and bottle as normal.

-a.