26 hours and no fermentation

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Mikeus

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Joined
Feb 28, 2007
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Location
Bentonville, AR
Hey everyone, looking for some advice. I brewed Austin's ESB extract recipe yesterday. Everything was normal except I could only leave out my White Labs yeast vial for about 2 hours before pitching. Austin recommended 24 hours and the vial itself said 3.

Anyway, it's been 26 hours and no sign of fermentation. The temp is 70F. I shook the carboy very lightly just to get the yeast disturbed.

Is it too early to tell if the yeast was bad?
 
buy another vial, get it going properly and re-pitch. can't hurt if it's the same yeast. if you can get one by tomorrow and take your time to get it started you should be alright. and if you see that fermentation has started while you were out buying yeast, hey...you're only out a few bucks. better that than wasting an entire batch.
 
The problem is I don't have a local supply store around here, so I'll have to order off the net. Guess I'll get on it.
 
You're probably ok. Liquid yeasts take a long time to get going unless you used a starter. I think 36 hours would not be unreasonable to wait before panicing. The problem is that you have to order, and it would be days and days before it arrived. That's not a good situation, but hopefully this yeast will wake up and get going. Cross your fingers!

Next time, make a starter in advance of your brewing, and stock up on some dry yeasts to have in the fridge. I did that with my last batch- my liquid yeast had a problem (long story) so I pitched my $1.00 package of nottingham.
 
I wouldn't worry about it yet, lag times can be 48 hours or more. As Yooper mentioned, the lack of a starter could contribute to a longer lag, even with the pitchable vials. Go ahead and order up some more yeast just in case, but I'd be willing to bet you won't need it.
 
Thanks for the help, everyone. This morning I woke up with a dreaded apprehension that I would have to overnight some yeast, but I walked in on a pleasant layer of krausen and bubbling from the blow off tube. Hooray!
 
Mikeus said:
Thanks for the help, everyone. This morning I woke up with a dreaded apprehension that I would have to overnight some yeast, but I walked in on a pleasant layer of krausen and bubbling from the blow off tube. Hooray!

I used the white labs yeast for the first time on my last batch and didn't use a starter. It took 36 hours to get going. Try the wyeast smack packs next time. Come with an activator in the pack. works great,
 
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