Fermentation hasn't started

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imadeherduck

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Hi everyone, I have a question about starting fermentation. I tried harvesting yeast from a couple cans of Heady Topper recently. I made a starter with 2c water + 1/2c DME, decant, then another 2c water + 1/2c DME. Not sure how well that worked because flocculated Conan looks a lot like clumps of DME. I brewed an IPA yesterday with OG 1.114 (a bit bigger than planned) and pitched the starter around 70 degrees. I also dropped a little starter in the test tube for a FFT. Now, 12 hours later, I see no action in the airlock and the gravity in the test tube hasn't changed.

Here's the real question: I'm leaving town in 24 hours for a wedding, and will be gone 4 days. If nothing changes by tomorrow morning, should I give up on the Conan yeast and pitch something else before I go? Would it be bad to wait and pitch a new yeast almost a week after brewing?

Thanks!

tl;dr: Tried to harvest yeast from bottle. Now no action in airlock or FFT. How long before I should worry?
 
fermentation sometimes takes several days to start. It looks like your starter was only a couple cups of wort? And the source was from the dregs of a couple bottles? If this is true, you probably severely underpitched given the very high starting gravity for your beer. It will take a long time for this yeast to really get going, assuming you were successful with culturing from the bottle in the first place - which it sounds like you aren't 100% sure you did. I would just sit back and let this thing take its time, I wouldn't pitch anything else into it for now. Be sure that you have measures in place to handle a blowoff while you are out.
 
Thanks. This was definitely higher gravity than I intended, and I've got a big blowofff tube set up while I'm gone. Should I expect faster results in the FFT, or will that take a few days to get started as well?
 
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