How long can wort sit?

I have a dilemma:

I made an over-sized (8 gallons when done / was supposed to b 5.5) batch of beer Saturday that is not fermenting.

The recipe was 17lbs. of malt, done all-grain and all seemed fine except I've now dumped two packets of yeast (one after the ice bath per normal / the second after 24 hours of no fermentation action) into the carboys and still no dice.

I can only think of 3 possible reasons as to why we aren't getting fermentation:
1) We pitched the initially yeast packet in about 10 degree too warm of wort (using Wyeast American Ale II liqui-pack) and the back-up (an almost year old Wyest Belgian Strong) was just dead yeast.

2) The two cans of pureed blueberries we added at flame-out some how messed up the acidity or yeast doesn't like the canned berries.

3) I had to toss into two carboys and the second, back-up was a sanitized (with Star San) older plastic carboy that isn't in the best shape ~ so I'm worried maybe it was harboring a bug of some kind.


To get to my real question.
The beer is in two carboys (one glass, my main work-horse) and the plastic one. Both have been cross-contaminated with beer having been tossed into both carboys (glass and plastic) and back-n-forth, but the wort smells great / doesn't have any off odors.

So; how long do you think I can leave the wort at room temp (it's at about 68 degrees)?
I ordered new yeast (Wyeast Belgian Abbey II Liqui-pack) that will arrive Wed. at the earliest.
Should I re-boil?
Throw it away?
Wait for 5 days (total time as we brewed Saturday) to pitch again and pray it's OK?

I'm thinking that since it's sanitary and happy in the closet (so closed off from everything) it will be OK but I don't know.
I'd also rather not re-boil the wort so honest input of "you should throw it away" may help me come to that inevitable conclusion.

Thanks!

I'd go with reason #4:

4) Underpitched yeast.

Depending on the OG, it is possibly still underpitched. It will probably take off by the time the new yeast arrives, but may still have problems. The yeast are busy right now building a few billions buddies to tackle the job.

What was the OG? How warm is 10 degrees too warm?

Don't reboil. It will mess up your hops. You're not under ideal conditions but I think you'll be fine just adding more yeast. You say you ended up with 8 gallons of wort rather than 5.5 gallons. What was your OG? Maybe your OG was much lower than you actually thought. If your OG is really low, it's possible your yeast is working away but at a much lower rate than what you would expect. What are you using to judge that your fermentation has not taken off? Revvy has quite a few very good threads preaching that airlock activity is not a sign of fermentation.

10 degrees too warm shouldn't kill your yeast. There has been several threads where a new guy pitches soon after boiling and the beer turned out fine. In fact, I think there was one of these last week.

SG was 1.059 / OG was 1.068 (not sure if we are doing the math correctly as those are temperature adjusted).

You bring up a good point as I once did a Dubbel and pitched the yeast at 98 degrees and it was completely fine!

In the brew-pot / post ice bath the wort was at about 84 degrees and we tossed into two carboys, then back to the brew-pot, pitched yeast, then tossed back into carboys.
I'm assuming with that aeration / tossing we were under 80 so I'd GUESS we pitched at just over 80 degrees... which doesn't seem too warm right?

Also, forgot to specify:
First yeast packet - brand new American Ale II, straight out the fridge - pitched onto (perhaps) too warm wort (though I'm wondering if just above 80 degrees is really "too warm").

Second yeast packet - nearly one year old Belgian Strong Ale - pitched 24 hours after brewing onto 68 degree wort.

Both packets were Wyeast Liqui-packs.

personally i think your panicking way to soon. some fermentations take a little while to really get going. i suggest just turing around and walking away. RDWHAHB

80F should be fine, I think the 100% kill temp is 140F, anything above about 100F causes retarded yeast. I agree that 24hrs is too early to be worrying, if you had made a starter of the correct size that could be a different story but every fermentation has the potential to be different from the last.

Yeast starter we did not do but would you think that the two yeast packs working together could pull through?

When I get home from work today we'll be at 48 hours out so I'll report then on what's up (or not).

Thanks!

Use www.mrmalty.com to figure the correct amount of yeast to pitch.

Fwiw, I just underpitched a cream ale with 1 bottle of kolsch yeast to 3 gallons of wort, and it took about 30 hours at 65 degrees for fermentation to start.

Wow, thanks so much you guys!