yeast bay cell counts

[jack_a_roe]

So I'm brewing up a Saison with the yeast bay's saison/brett blend next week sometime. I wanted to make it on the larger side at about 1.070 OG which would mean I need 265 bi cells. Their website says each vial contains 58 bi...my question is should i sacrifice the ratio they purposely made of the strains and make a starter or just leave it as is and underpitch like crazy?

I know you usually want to underpitch belgian strains depending on how many esters your looking for but isn't that undershooting things a little too much?

Also, i'm well aware the brett will properly dry things out for me even if the primary strain poops out early which i guess they only gave so few cells? any insight from people that have used this blend? or just any advice?

 

[kingwood-kid]

Whether or not you make a starter, the saison yeast will grow much faster than the brett. But you're not relying on the brett's early contributions, just on what it does after the saison yeast is finished, so the ratio is not that important. Of course, once the brett does its thing, it may not matter a great deal which particular saccharomyces strain you used. For this beer, I'd make a starter, but I wouldn't worry too much about hitting the 265 billion cells, just having an active, healthy supply that's over 100 billioncells.

 

[Coff]

Yea, I wouldnt stress the cell counts too much, the Brett will break down byproducts from your underpitched fermentation over the coming weeks/months. Go for a 500ml-1L starter and you'll be fine. The blend ratios here arent all that big of a deal, if it was a sacch/brett/pedio/lacto blend with various strains of each then I would worry about the ratios but not just sacch and Brett.

 

[bestbuds]

I don't think that introducing an intermediate step (starter) between the vial and the beer is going to cause an extreme shift in the strain ratio. Furthermore, being in beer will also place selection pressure on the culture such that certain strains/species will thrive under different conditions/timeframes. In this case the benefits of a starter (improving yeast cell count and vitality) outweigh any possible skew of the blending. You're still going to have billions of cells of each strain going into the beer.

 

[jack_a_roe]

Ok that all sounds good. Found it kind of crazy their cell counts are half of wyeast/white labs. Wonder what their rationalization for this is.

 

[CreekBrewery]

I wouldn't worry about it, I always under pitch my Belgians. About a month ago I did a 1.056 wort and pitched this blend, it performed wonderfully and was down to 1.007 after two weeks. The latest sample has a nice bright citrus smell and the taste has a good funk, the website description is very good.

This isn't quite a big as you're going but IMO Belgian yeasts like to be abused a bit and be made to work. The one thing I don't skimp on though is plenty of 02 to get them started right.