Overpitching a session saison?

[wlssox524]

Hey all--

I'm making a session strength saison this weekend (5.5 gallons of ~1.042 OG wort). I plan to ferment with Wyeast 3711 at 68 degrees. I currently have a 1L starter on a stir plate as I need about 150B cells and the smack pack was calculated to have ~70B based on the age.

My concern is that the 1L starter is calculated to produce ~220B cells. As I understand, Mr. Malty (where I calculated the size) never recommends below a 1L starter, so I kept it at this size, but is this overpitching by too much? Should I just try to pitch 3/4 of the slurry? Or am I overthinking?

Thanks!

 

[Magic8Ball]

I think you will find a fair number of brewers that would suggest underpitching a saison just to increase the ester profile.

 

[motorneuron]

Yeah, I was going to say--saisons depend very heavily on yeast for their flavor, and you're already fermenting pretty cool for 3711. So you could probably just use half that slurry, even. Also, why 68F? Is that your pitching temperature only (so that you'll allow it to free rise), or are you actually going to keep it at 68F the whole time through control? I would recommend free rise--that tends to work well with most Belgian yeasts, including saison, to achieve proper attenuation and flavor. (However, 3711 is so beastly that you have more margin to get proper attenuation.)

 

[Magic8Ball]

FWIW In regards to temperature for WY3711 Brasserie Thiriez (French Saison)strain. The Brasseries website gives you alot of info on how they treat all of their beers. Not that you would ever find website information in conflict with reality, but it looks like they ferment 64-77 deg F "depending on the beers".

"All our beers are brewed respecting the same rules :
Ingrédients : water, barley or wheat malts, hops, spices (limited to some beers), yeast. No additive of any kind, no colouring.
Top fermentation (18 to 25 °C depending on beers ) in stainless steel tanks.
Lagering for at least two weeks, then bottling in 33 cl or 75 cl bottles or kegs.
The beers are neither filtered nor pasteurized..."

 

[stpug]

In terms of getting good finished saison beer, you'd be fine pitching anywhere from 1/2 to the whole starter. Unfortunately, calculators don't take into account strain of yeast or how it's been handled so you'll only ever be getting an estimate with a decent margin of error. However, it DOES provide a baseline from which to work.

With that said, I would do as you've suggested. Pitch 3/4 of the starter to achieve what Mr Malty thinks will be the correct pitching rate and save the remaining 1/4 starter for another batch (just build it up first) as a first generation yeast (i.e high quality, high viability, low trub content). Additionally, the yeast cake produced by your session saison is actually perfect starter gravity so you'll also be creating a quart or more of wonderful saison yeast for future batches; or pass them along to friends; or add some to the final minutes of a boil to become yeast nutrients; or put them in your compost; or (worst case) wash them down the drain (poor yeasties ).