Need some yeast advice...

[cclloyd]

I just flamed out what was gonna be a hefe and all went well / as expected except..... the starter I made yesterday didn't start. I harvested 1056 from my last hefe using the instructions on the forum thread for this action. I boiled two cups of light dme in a half gallon of water and cooled it to 80F, then pitched a pint of harvested yeast, and now 26+ hours later have no activity at all in the starter vessel. So the way I see it my options are....
Pitch it and hope for the best... and if I have no activity in a day or two I can pitch a smack-pack or some dry yeast... or just pitch dry yeast now (I always keep some Safale US-05 on hand just in case) and have an American wheat, and if the starter starts I can do a mid-week brew and have two batches in primary... or wait until tomorrow and see if my starter comes around and then pitch... or... a lot of variables here.
My inclination is to pitch the US-05 and seal it up. Then if the starter gets going I can brew again to accomodate it. Another question - how long after activity is a starter viable, assuming it eventually does it's thing?
Thanks for input...

 

[cclloyd]

crickets...... I pitched the US-05 Sunday morning and had activity by mid afternoon. Of course I also got activity in my starter by then so I will brewing another batch tomorrow.

 

[FishinDave07]

Starters can take a while to get going sometimes. My latest starter had the same problem so i made another starter with the same yeast. Here is the result:

The older one is on the right and just started when i finished making the second one. Fermentation was WILD!