Fermentation Temperature Dropping - Whats the impact???

[B33rL0v3r]

So my fermentation temperature on a wheat ale and a hefweizen has gone like this:

first afternoon: 74F
first night: 70F
day 1: 70F
day2: 68 F
day 3 66-68F
day 3: 66F
day 4: 62-64F

I've been using a water and ice bath to keep the temperature cool and I think I overcompensated on the ice this morning before going to work. I want to keep the beer around 64-68F. The airlock is still moving at 62F and I'm going to let it warm up a bit, back to 66F before doing anything else.

My question is how much of an impact is this going to have on the taste of my beer that temperature has slowly dropped over 4 days? What kind of impact?

I'm brewing with Wyeast 1010 American Wheat and Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

I'm looking to get a fermentation chamber soon, but this is the only method I have now. I'm just worried about the temperature swing affecting my flavor. The yeast seem to still be working at 62F so I don't think they've gone dormant.

 

[B33rL0v3r]

Also, would it be bad to increase the temp back towards the 70's for the Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen? I was just reading the description on their site and it says that the banana esters come out more around the 70-75F range whereas the lower temperatures will give a higher clove character to be perceived. Has anyone had luck with experimenting like this? I obviously don't want to undesirable banana flavor, but it sounds like this yeast does it well.

Would the 24 hours it fermented at 70-74 be enough to do this? Or should I maybe raise it a little?

 

[eastoak]

i like to keep all of my beer fermenting in an ambient temperature of 65 degrees and this has improved the flavors tremendously. after the first 48 hrs or so your beer has the flavors, good or bad that it's going to have so if i were you i'd stabilize the temp at whatever temp you want and try to hold it there for the duration.