Cold Yeast and Minor Shaking

Hey all. So this batch has been a lot of firsts for me. I am making my first Belgian Dubbel (yay!). I did my first full volume boil (yay!). I am also trying to get better control over the temperature by using a big tub full of cold water and some floating frozen milk jugs. I used two packets of Wyeast 3787.

Here is my problem:
It was taking a really long time to cool my wort to pitching temp, so I put it in my spare room, opened the windows, filled up a tub with cold water and a couple frozen mil jugs, and put my 6.5 gallon glass carboy in there. It was taking forever to get down to pitching temp (I wanted to pitch at like 65 and let it warm to a steady 70ish). So, I got lazy and pitched at like 75, and left it in the "cooler" overnight thinking that fermentation would kick off and it would stabilize at the right temp. However, when I woke up this morning the temperature had dropped to the mid fifties (duh!). I closed the window and took it out of the "cooler."
It is starting to warm up, however the yeast has all fallen to the bottom of the fermenter. As it warms, and gets closer to the ideal temp for the yeast (65F), I was thinking about gently rocking it to stir up the yeast. I figure if I don't splash it I won't be adding too much oxygen to the wort. Any thoughts on this?

I would appreciate any help that you can give me. Thanks all.

even if you got oxygen in it, likely wouldn't be a bad thing, yeast need O2. They might just start up on their own though, let it warm up and see what happens?

You will be fine. The start of your fermentation will just be delayed. Once you get back up to fermentation temp your yeast will start to wake up and do there thing. Just might be slow at first.

Oxygen before fermentation is not a bad thing. I add oxygen to my wort before I pitch to help the yeast be happy.

You should be fine, however that strain can have some problems with large temperature swings like that. Just make sure it finishes out alright.

Hopper5000 said:

You should be fine, however that strain can have some problems with large temperature swings like that. Just make sure it finishes out alright.

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Yeah, once it gets to the ideal fermentation temp I am going to keep it steady. Thanks for the help all.