I don't think you'll have any problems with the starter eventually waking up and fermenting it just fine.
There's going to be lots of live yeasties but they'll need time to warm up and wake up, and get multiplying. They need Free Amino Nitrogen (not a problem with AG, if doing extract just make sure you've added yeast nutrient) and oxygen for cell wall growth in order to reproduce (bud). I would probably reoxygenate every 6-12 hours until the population gets up to where it should be.
You should also end up with even more Belgiany esters from pitching a lower population of viable yeast. (The Belgians often pitch much lower quantities of yeast than the Americans would and some of the American brewers who consistently brew Belgian styles are slowly understanding that they need to underpitch to get the same estery profiles.)
-Having said that, if the population is REALLY low your yeasties will spit out lots of solventy flavors that you probably don't want..
To quote "Brew Like a Monk": [i:14bhyqke]"Higher pitching rates lower ethyl acetate levels. Very high or very low pitching rates increase ester levels"[/i:14bhyqke]. Ethyl Acetate == "Banana flavor". You're pitching low or very low so you'll probably have increased bananna and esters.
For this style of beer, have a starter that takes off slowly might not be a bad thing if you like the big yeast flavors.
The flavor contributions and behavior of the Wyeast "High Gravity Yeast" is SUPER well documented
3787 will spit out more of the higher fusol alcohols and solventy flavors at higher temps; you're already going to be getting more of those because you pitched a low population of viable yeast, so I'm hoping you started fermenting this pretty cool or else you could have lots of solventy flavor.
(If it's already pretty high in temp you also can't really cool most of the Belgian yeasts or they'll just drop out of solution and won't come back...)
Achel and Westmalle pitch 3787 at 18C and then let it ramp up to 20 (Westmalle) or 23 (Achel). Westvleteren pitches at 20C and then ramps it WAY up to 28 or 29C. Which probably explains the light smoky/burned flavor from all the fusol alcohols and solvents.
The higher the gravity the more esters you'll get too.
So you're looking at multiple factors cranking up the esters and fusol alcohols on tihs one already and you might want to try to do something else to crank them back down. More aeration will lower ester production depending upon how late in fermentation you already are. (Maybe aerate more...)
Open fermentation will also lower esters because of an increase in oxygenation so theoritically you could take the top off your fermenter to help, but then after the krausen starts falling back in you'd want to put the lid on to reduce the risk of infection.
Lots to think about.... I'd love to have your beer to experiment with right now. ; )
Adam
" title="Smile" /><!-- s:-) --> ) and - to my horror! - realised that the refrigerated High Gravity Trappist yeat have not started the starter... Anybody has a surplus of any form of belgian yeast in Dublin I could collect today evening or tomorrow?
