Fermentation times and swamp coolers?

[donkeyhodie3]

Morning all. This is my first time using a swamp cooler and I have a couple of easy (I hope) questions if I may. Brewed my 1st attempt at my own recipe (a Smutty IPA clone) Sunday, pitched a one liter starter of WY1272 @ 75*.It took off almost exactly 24 hrs later. I'm using a 48 qt cooler that my Ale Pail just barely fits into, so I've got 1 chamber on each side. It's been bubbling along now for 5 days at a pretty consistent 65-70* water temp and 62-66* on the fermometer. This morning the bubbling slowed down to about every 6-7 seconds.
My questions: first, knowing there are alot of variables involved here, is there any rule of thumb as to how long to leave it in the cooler, or just wait till the bubbles stop and I get 3 consistent gravity readings? Second, I managed to maintain those temps without alot of ice cube/ice bottle additions. This normal or did I just get lucky?
Sorry to get long winded, just trying to be as concise as possible. I'm trying to baby this along. Thanks for any help!

 

[malkore]

since you didn't have a lot of extra water in that cooler, your ice usage was just more efficient.

I would wait until the gravity bottoms out and you know its 'done'. At that point you could def. stop adding ice and let it warm up to about 70F. rack to secondary or do a long primary...either way give the yeast enough time at 70~ to clean up any possible off flavors like diacetyl and other by-products.