Refermentation in bottle - pitching rate?

[hooplehead]

I am going to try my first attempt at refermenting in bottle. Does anyone have experience with this? What is the normal pitching rate? I plan on using liquid yeast (WLP 550). I have a 5g batch of strong dark Belgian. For example, should I add one vial of yeast with the priming sugar before bottling? Of course I want to avoid exploding bottles...

any thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

[scinerd3000]

are you refering to bottle carbination or what? whats the gravity of your 5g currently...if its not attenuated all the way your gonna explode bottles

 

[hooplehead]

bottle carbonation, yes. The OG is 1.086 and FG after 8 days in the primary is 1.020 (77% attenuation). I was shooting for 1.011 but have come to find out that the large amount of extract I used may well have too many long chain sugars for the yeast to handle at this point. I may not have aerated well enough either - even though I am using a highly attenuating yeast (WLP 550 @80-90%) there is likely not enough oxygen or nutrients left for the yeast to get the gravity down. The wort is sweet right now and I am hoping a month in the secondary may eek it down some more. I am also contemplating a new yeast starter with fresh yeast for the secondary. Thoughts?

 

[scinerd3000]

usually after your positive its fully attenuated you add 3/4 cup priming sugar per 5 gals. i would use a nutral bottling dry yeasy but thats just me. No reason to waste good expensive liquid yeast on bottling. Use nottingham possibly...?

Give it a few more days and it it doesnt drop you can always reptich another starter of the same yeast. Im getting about 75% attenuation with promash but id say you still have a bit more to go. WLP website says 78-85%....what temp are you fermering at? you could try moving it to a slightly warmer area to get it regoing but i would let it sit for a few more days. I have a beer right now which started at 1.059 is still fermenting 2 weeks later (beligain wit). Give it time and it will do its thing...in a few more days check gravity and if it didint move consider a starter of fresh wlp550.