I was wondering why you would transfer from primary to second to finish the fermentation? Taking it off the yeast will halt fermentation in my experience.
I recently did this beer and it was the first big beer I did with my current set up. I didn't account for the efficiency hit that comes with big beers, usually I'm in the 77%-80% but with this large of a malt bill I was down to 62%. Which I got an og of 1.072. It fermented down to 1.017. So...
I'm sorry to hijack, but rev I saw your responses about swamp coolers and I was just wondering how you monitored your fermentation temps. I have glass carboys and was wondering if the stick on strips were good enough.