Fermentation Temperature started too high?

Ok. I'm brewing Yuri's Thunderstruck Pumpkin Ale. I repitched around 150 ml of 1098 yeast slurry from a previous cream ale. Placed ale pail in temperature-controlled mini-fridge which read 62 degrees (ambient). In 12 hours, the pail themometer reads 78 degrees. I adjusted the temperature control and brought the fermenter down to the present 64-66 degrees. My question is will this intial burst of high temperature hurt anything? I brought it down in less than a day. And what is the best place for the probe? I've read that you should tape it to the fermenter and I've also read just placing it in the cabinet works as well. Mine is mounted to the inside of the cabinet. Is there a way to set and forget a Johnson analog controller to maintain a somewhat constant fermentation temperature in a mini-fridge to account for the initial fermentation heat? It seems I'm always adjusting that thing based on the readings from the stick-on thermometer on the fermenting bucket.

Could you put the probe inside the fermenting wort itself? It seems like that would do the trick.

The large yeast slurry kicked off and raised the interior heat of the fermentation rapidly, is what happened.

I wouldn't worry about it. The faster fermentation can cause a few off flavors, but if it's a medium bodied ale (as most pumpkin ales are) then any off flavors will go away with a bit of time.

It's good that you got the temp under control in a timely manner. But I wouldn't be too worried about it.

As far as the controller goes, I use one of those also in a full sized fridge. The problem is that it's taking the temp of the fridge and not of the wort/beer. About the best advice I can give, is that one of the magazines (byo or zymurgy) awhile back put a helpful little thing in there where a guy took a white labs yeast vial, drilled and grommeted the vial and inserted the probe filled with water.

Then the probe was put into the fridge, and supposedly this helps the probe account a little more for liquid temps. Of course this can't compensate for the heat that an intense fermentation generates, but it can't hurt I guess.

I haven't tried this, my probe is just basically attached to the interior of my door.

cheers
~r~

i'm afraid that would make no difference to the temp reading. placing it in water inside the fridge wont change anything, except maybe how quickly the temp at the probe reaches the temp in the fridge. the heat generation within the wort is the only thing keeping it from stabilizing at the temp of the fridge. a probe in the wort would be the best bet, about 2/3 of the radius of the bucket away from the edge. on the bucket itself is as accurate as you can get without a probe in the wort though. hey, i just used my college heat transfer class for a beer problem

Thanks for the help. I'm not sure if the probe can be submersed in any liquid. It's the copper bulb. Do you think that taping it to the bucket and covering with bubble wrap would be better than attached to the fermentation chamber?

that would be more accurate than attaching it to the fermentation chamber. now you have me thinking of what DIY build might be the most overkill way to control temps. hmm... yeah, i'd just tape the probe to the bucket, a little insulation wouldn't hurt (bubblewrap) but its probably overkill too.