Question about Bottle Conditioning in my first-ever Homebrew

[Kunal Vanjare]

Also, for a 5L batch, is 500ml or 0.5L of water (sanitized) with about 71gms of DME(as per Brewers Friend) really required? I have seen some people use about 50-100ml of water for a 5L batch..

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

Yes, you probably do not need 0.5 L. But 50-100 ml seems a bit low to me...I would still go for at least 200-300 ml. Purpose here is also to multiply some yeast.
I usually go 100 g of DME per liter of water. That's become a standard dosage for starters as far as I know.
Just add the DME to water, boil everything for a few minutes. Let it cool, aerate well (shaking for example), then pitch your yeast. Let it ride 16 to max. 24 hours, then pitch into the main batch.

 

[Kunal Vanjare]

Yes, you probably do not need 0.5 L. But 50-100 ml seems a bit low to me...I would still go for at least 200-300 ml. Purpose here is also to multiply some yeast.
I usually go 100 g of DME per liter of water. That's become a standard dosage for starters as far as I know.
Just add the DME to water, boil everything for a few minutes. Let it cool, aerate well (shaking for example), then pitch your yeast. Let it ride 16 to max. 24 hours, then pitch into the main batch.

Alright. I'll follow this regimen from the next batch onwards. Thanks!

 

[SEndorf]

To clarify, you don't need campden tablets with RO water. There are no chloramines to remove. RO water has virtually no minerals. Beer needs minerals for a thriving fermentation. It's a safe bet that many of the problems you encountered with this brew session were the result of using stripped RO water, particularly lacking calcium chloride. Unadjusted RO water is fine for extract brewing, but not for all grain.

 

[Kunal Vanjare]

To clarify, you don't need campden tablets with RO water. There are no chloramines to remove. RO water has virtually no minerals. Beer needs minerals for a thriving fermentation. It's a safe bet that many of the problems you encountered with this brew session were the result of using stripped RO water, particularly lacking calcium chloride. Unadjusted RO water is fine for extract brewing, but not for all grain.

In what proportion do you use Calcium chloride? And do you add it during the mash?

 

[SEndorf]

In the absence of a water calculator, a good resource is the water primer sticky in the brew science forum.

 

[Taket_al_Tauro]

To clarify, you don't need campden tablets with RO water. There are no chloramines to remove. RO water has virtually no minerals. Beer needs minerals for a thriving fermentation. It's a safe bet that many of the problems you encountered with this brew session were the result of using stripped RO water, particularly lacking calcium chloride. Unadjusted RO water is fine for extract brewing, but not for all grain.

While I fully agree that straight RO water might not be ideal from a flavor/mouthfeel standpoint, I did not imagine it could also impact fermentation performance... I thought malt would provide all the nutrients yeast needs for a healthy growth (including minerals)?

Now I know that brulosophy exbeeriments are somewhat controversial...but there was one about straight RO vs adjusted RO. If I am not mistaken there weren't any fermentation problems in the straight RO batch, and it finished at the same FG as the mineral-adjusted batch. But the majority of the participants still preferred the adjusted batch (flavor-wise).

So I'd still argue that the OPs main issue was most probably yeast quality/vitality.