Temperature: over do it or really over do it

[Masennus]

'Ello there! Greetings from Finland! First post and got a tricky bomb already dropping to you guys:

My first patch is beer kit Muntons Gold IPA, and the box says that it should be fermenting in 65-70°F. The first night it was fermenting in 77-85°F(or atleast the sticker meter said so on the fermentor). The next morning I checked it it was bubbling like crazy and I believe those temperatures are not that okay. The cellar temperature is roughly 77°F.

Okay so now to the tricky part: the apartment I currently live in has also a cold room, where I already moved the fermentor to cool the process down a bit to avoid any off-flavours caused by too high temperatures. In roughly 11 hours, the temperature has gone as down as 66°F which looks just the perfect rate. BUT: the cold room is set to 45°F and the patch is probably going towards to that temperature all the time. Sadly my flat is going as high as 80+°F leaving the cellar and the cold room only options to ferment before the winter.

The question is: what's too low? When the bubbles stop coming? I believe that fermentation is still taking place even if the bubbles stop but are we really going too low? Would you rather prefer too high of a temperature or overkilling it with way too low temperature or something in between? I'm totally fine carrying the patch around between the cellar and cold room, only a few meters to carry around a 5 gallons of brewtech which my size of a guy lifts up with no problem.

I will probably keep it in the cold room overnight and check for the bubbles. I can't get the inner temperature as the sticker only displays numbers between 66-85°F.

The grammar might've been bad as I'm not a native writer, but try to bear with me.

 

[flars]

65° to 70° would be the ideal temperature for most ale yeasts. The temperature spike you wort realized can produce off flavors. The nastiest is fusel alcohols, strong harsh alcohol bite guaranteed to cause headaches.

On the other side of your predicament temperature swings will stress the yeast and cause off flavors to also be produced. To cold can cause the yeast to drop out and become dormant.

You can set your fermentor in a tub of cool water to absorb heat from the wort. The water can be further cooled with plastic soda bottles of ice. A wet t-shirt over the fermentor with a fan blowing can accelerate evaporation to further cool the fermentor. An enhanced swamp cooler.

Stick on thermometers will not survive being submerged. You may need to move it higher if necessary.

 

[Masennus]

That's some informant text right there!

Thank you, I guess I will set up a swamp cooler first thing in the morning.