Heady Topper Clone/Vermont Ale Yeast

[lcgloveriv]

I'm 20 days into fermentation with this Off the Topper 5 gallon extract kit from Northern Brewer. Everything has gone pretty smooth and for the first time I'm trying my hand at temperature control using an upright freezer. I pitched from a 2 liter starter on 4/9/17 right at 70F. OG = 1.070. I held it at 70F overnight and woke up to find very vigorous activity. I cooled it to about 67F and held it for the next 10 days. On the 10th day I went with the first dry hop addition and took a gravity reading of 1.0165. Tasted it and it was amazing. The fruit character was perfect and the balance of bitterness from the hops was spot on. I was hoping for more than 76% AA and figured it wasn't finished. I raised the temperature to 73F over about 3 days. New gravity was 1.0160 so it's certainly almost finished. At this tasting there was much less bitterness and the fruit aroma wasn't nearly as intense. I presume that higher temps will drive off some of those fruity esters. I lowered the temp back down to 67-68, transfered to secondary, and kept it at 67 for the next 7 days. Today, day 20, I took a gravity of 1.015. So AA improved slightly but nothing to write home about. The color is amazing but that tropical fruit/peach aroma is much more subdued and it seems to have a Belgian character to it. I still have the second dry hop to go next week and then bottling.

My questions are:
What do you think of my temperature profile? Too much up and down? Too warm?

Do I still need a d-rest at elevated temp? Or do you think it will clean up during bottle conditioning, if it's even there?

I was initially planning to cold crash but I may not based on the beautiful haziness I saw today.

Im relatively new to brewing, started a couple years ago. I've brewed 6 batches prior to this so I've still got a lot to learn. Any advice will be much obliged.

Cheers!

 

[Beerdrinker85]

I always pitch low and get the temp up. I am running Vermont ale at 63F for 1 week and get the temp up slowly to reach 70-71F
You can read this post: Heady Topper Clone https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=390082

 

[Chrisbrewbeers]

I've heard of that Belgian taste before but I only had it once and that batch got hot too soon. I did still like the beer a lot. Most of my best beers have used Conan yeast. Swamp cooler with sticker thermometer on side, try for 64-66 then after it slows stop worrying about it and package 2-3 weeks later.