Enough yeast for high gravity saison?

I'm planning to brew a high gravity saison tomorrow with wyeast 3711 (125ml smack pack)... here's my concern: the week has been pretty crazy and I didn't think about making a starter until now. I really want to brew tomorrow but don't want to screw my batch by not having sufficient cells. Planned OG is 1.075. I've heard that this yeast is a monster so hoping it'll fire off and I'll be ok. Any strong opinions either way?
thanks for input!!

You can do both. Make a starter right now, and brew tomorrow but don't pitch your yeast till Thursday morning. This will work out great.

thanks bottlebomber! question though... I'm brewing all grain and don't have any DME lying around, suitable substitute?

Ooh... you could try to find that Goya stuff people use, the malted soda. If not that you could try malted milk powder but you're really reaching with that. If you can't make an all grain starter you may just want to pitch the yeast as is. Underpitching isn't always a bad thing with estery beers, it will probably be ok

When I first started brewing, before I made starters, I brewed a Saison with 3711 that had an OG of 1.065. The 3711 took all they way down to 1.004.

If you can make a starter fine, but if not you should be OK. That yeast will chew through anything.

3711 is crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if that smack pack ate right through your beer. If you have some extra feains laying around, mash them and make a starter with it. I'm not sure its worth the extra effort though.

Not sure if its this yeast or style, but don't breweries purposely underpitch to get more of the yeasts characteristics to come through? I remember reading about it somewhere, but dont remember what style beer it was

Thanks all for the input... leaning toward just pitching the pack.

Would there be a downside to brewing today and pitching tomorrow? I would imagine you give aerated wort more time to lose oxygen out of solution and give wort more contact time with air (before CO2 would push air out of carboy)...

There's no disadvantage to pitching the next day, I do it all the time. There are at least hundreds of brewers on here who practice "no-chill" brewing where near boiling wort is dumped into a bucket, and innoculated whenever it cools down (at least 24 hours later) the wort is pretty stable.

Out of curiosity, how are you brewing a saison in late november? Do you have a heat wrap or something?

bottlebomber said:

There's no disadvantage to pitching the next day, I do it all the time. There are at least hundreds of brewers on here who practice "no-chill" brewing where near boiling wort is dumped into a bucket, and innoculated whenever it cools down (at least 24 hours later) the wort is pretty stable.

Out of curiosity, how are you brewing a saison in late november? Do you have a heat wrap or something?

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According to Wyeast's site the temperature range for this yeast is 65-77 and it sounds like many have fermented in that range. I might try to get it into the low 70s to start with a heating pad (until it gets going).

I fermented 10 g of saison with this yeast. 5g temp controlled at 69 and 5g with no temp control where the ambient was in the 80's. The non temp controlled tasted more like a saison. I think you need higher temps to get that spicy saison character.

I did a saison with a similar gravity and one smack pack. Fermented from 70 ~ 75, slowly increasing until activity stopped. Turned out spicy and fantastic

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3711 is going to finish your beer, period.

I fermented a 1.100 beer with a single smackpack of 3711 to 1.002, it never stops until the sugars are gone, it's crazy.