Beer is made in kettles and fermenters, not in computer models or spreadsheets. Just like weather is made in the atmosphere and not in the models that fail to predict it (my local forecast for yesterday was 12-18” snow, 12 hours before we got a little drizzling rain... stuff is complex, I’m not mad at em).
So what I'm hearing is: "supercomputer"
And finally, one factor that may muddy the science vs reality is the effect that pitch rate has on the length of the lag and log phases. Under pitching may simply lengthen these periods slightly, keeping the yeast in ester mode longer, thus resulting in more esters.
You also posted earlier about keeping yeast in log phase, but earlier referring to availability of O2:
Hmm... may want to revisit that hypothesis. Esters come from growth. The access to oxygen keeps a small pitch of yeast in the growth phase longer.
This gives me a bunch of questions that I didn't see the answers to in this thread or in Zymurgy:
Do you have a target pitch rate, or some proxy which approximates a target pitch rate (e.g., fresh vial in 1 qt starter at ~1.040)?
Do you add oxygen or air initially? Is there a target initial DO rate? Is there a nominal rate and then you count on availability of oxygen in headspace? Do you feel strongly about these things, or do you only feel strongly that it is the entire process that makes the difference (as seems to be what you're saying in the last post)?
I've been working on my hefe for years and I still fiddle with pitching rate and oxygen more than I fiddle with anything else, really. My experience has been: that's how I make wildly different beers from the same ingredients. I pitch low (~6E6/mL), and I do 90 seconds O2 at 1LPM. I used to do a mix-stir for O2 since some smart folks I respect pointed to low DO driving esters, but that hasn't worked for me.
Also, while I directed this a bit to hacksackr if anyone else has experience playing with any of these variables I'd love to hear about it.
Random aside:
I love this thread! I feel like a lot of dogma leaks into brewing which may help new folks climb the learning-curve faster initially, but I think it does a disservice to our shared community understanding. There's a lot of great brewing literature that amalgamates knowledge from thousands of years of trial and error. And there are so many paths to amazing beer that on paper don't seem like they'll ever work. The more I've tried those weird paths, the more I realize that I have no idea what's going to make a good beer, but I can try it and see if it works for me.
Great thread, thanks for still being passionate about this stuff folks <3