size of saison starter?

i will be brewing a saison on sunday, 1.062 OG
Will be brewing it with white labs 568.
any suggestions of size of starter for this? i was going to just go with standard 1L but then i was listening to jamil show on this and he was talking about making sure not to over pitch this one and really let the yeasties do some work.
what do you guys suggest? or does it really matter lol

I used 568 in a 1.064 beer with a 1L starter. That was apparently plenty of yeast, since it got started in just a few hours, but I did not ramp the temperature as aggressively as I should have and only got 71% attenuation.

cool ill keep that in mind. Im planning on starting it at 68 or so. Then after a day ramp it up to 85 or so within the week (as long as my heating pad can do that) haha. how fast did you ramp it up? and to what temperature.

It was a couple years ago, but I think I only brought it up to 75ish. I wasn't taking obsessive notes then like I do now.

1L is probably way to small for a simple starter. Are you using a stirplate or oxygen?

Use the yeast pitching calculator on Mrmalty.com Use this to calculate ALL your starters. Then use the fermentation temps to effect the flavors.

The amount you pitch affects ester production. All other things being equal, the less you pitch the more esters you will get.

I imagine Jamil said you should be careful not to over pitch since esters are an important part of any Saison (any Belgian, really). But "over pitching" can be a relative thing. Mr. Malty is a good tool, but like any tool it is only suited to particular tasks. I used Mr. Malty to calculate the size of my Hefeweizen starter, and next time I'll either make a smaller starter or no starter at all as I really want more esters in my Hefe.

I'd say start with what Mr. Malty says. If you have a stir plate, that'll probably be something close to a 1L starter. When the beer is carbed up and aged and ready to drink, evaluate the ester profile. If you think it needs a stronger ester profile, you know to pitch less yeast next time! I use Mr. Malty's suggestions as the baseline and, based on my results, adjust from there.

Be careful under pitching. It can be harder to get full attenuation in a bigger beer if you under pitch. The saison style needs a very dry fully attenuated finish. Sweet saisons are just not as drinkable.

If you pitch the proper amount of healthy yeast, ferment at the proper temps you should have no problems getting great yeast flavors. At least that has been my experience.

SG under 1.060 = no starter
SG over 1.060 = 1.5l starter

Normal is a small starter batch and repitch onto yeast cake.

I use wyeast 3711 or 3711 with a blend of other saison yeast, I don't use wlp565 as the hassle of heating or stalling or long wait isn't worth my time.

woops guys forgot about this thread sorta haha. Thanks for all the replies. And im going to go with a standard starter and make sure not to do it to small. Ill check out Mr. Malty as well. thanks for all the advice.