Fermentation Support Forum

I followed the following steps to start a batch of spontaneous honey wine, but can't seem to tell if fermentation has started (no bubbles, etc).

Boiled 16 cups water for 15 min to boil off chlorine (my water does not contain chloramines)
cooled to room temp before adding the water to:
- 4 cups honey
- 7.5 oz of crushed cranberries
- a little bit of lemongrass
- two oak honeycombs used in a past beer fermentation

stirred and let sit in my kitchen, it has now been three days and still no bubbles. I stir about 3-5 times a day depending on how much i remember to get to it.

Can anyone shed any light on why this might not be taking off? last time i ended up waiting too long and a mold developed in the carboy, ruined the batch.

Thanks!

Hopefully someone better will come along to comment, but I've done this a few times. I have ended up having to do each of the following to get a batch of honey going:
1) Once, I just needed to aerate like crazy by stirring vigorously three times per day. You're already stirring, but are you stirring like crazy?
2) Once, that didn't do the job but I was able to get it going by tossing in a fist-full of raisins (which have yeast on their skins). But I'd sort of expect your cranberries to perform that function. Maybe a few raisins wouldn't hurt.
3) Once, nothing I did was working and we gave up (for fear of spoilage, like you) and pitched a packet of champagne yeast. Boy howdy, it took off then!