4Mesh.. thank you for your thoughts on this. If I might, I’d like to lay out what I did with a replay of the temps along the way and ask you if I messed up too much.
No, you didn't.
As you may have read earlier, I have a wifi thermometer attached to the side of the primary fermenter so I have a time line of temps from start to right now.
I cooled the wort with a chiller and pitched two packets of dry S-04 yeast directly into the wort when it reached 72 degreesF.
I've seen info suggesting re-hydrating US-04 in plain water offers a much more viable yeast pitch. Even seen it suggested it's 2x. I don't know that to be true, and Fermentis doesn't say that on their page for it, nor on the packet. But they do mention rehydraton in water or wort for 15-30 min. In my experience with it, I didn't take notice to any significant difference, but I also don't use this yeast in higher gravity beers.
The greater the amount of yeast you pitch, the less of a reproductive phase your wort will experience. I've seen commercial brewers say it's virtually impossible to overpitch to a detriment. That's been my experience also.
Keep in mind, folks say the center of the beer is warmer than the exterior during active fermentation. I have never tested it. In vessels the size I use (5/10G) maybe it's less. Perhaps one day I'll see for sure. I've seen reports of 3-4 deg F. But I do not know how large the diameter needs to be to have that big a difference. Maybe in 5-10G it's 0.01F.
I immediately put a cork in with an airlock and carried it to the basement. The basement temps are cooler than the living area. This was April 30, a Sunday at 1530 in the afternoon . By 8 am on Monday morning it read 68.2. (I think it had started to ferment some and that explains the slow temperature drop). I have another wifi thermometer in the basement and it read about 4 degrees cooler than the beer at 8am also. From 8 am the temperature inside the fermenter grew steadily and reached its highest of 70.9!at 1936 Monday evening April 1st and then steadily decreased its heat bloom until about 1900 on Wednesday the 3rd when it settled to a flat line of 64.6 F. Great krausen head and significant bubbling!!!
There's definitely going to be a temp shift from ambient to beer in the first days. I just had a porter that maintained 6-8 deg F above ambient in a plastic fermenter for 2 days. Thankfully ambient was 52-55. I pitched a LOT of yeast in that. I also injected pure oxygen for 45 seconds, so it really got a head start. For reference, I believe Sierra Nevada uses
1200# of yeast in a 24K gallon (edit) 1000# of yeast in a 12K gallon batch of Bigfoot. Let those numbers sink in.
By day 3 I always expect it to be very near ambient. 1 or 2 days later I generally let it warm up, of force it to, and let it finish that way. Then cold crash IF I'm going to CC but I don't always. When you watch videos of commercial brewers talking about their processes, some stuff applies to us and others doesn't. But, generally their temp controls, while done way differently than ours, are applicable to our small batches.
It stayed at that temp, give or take a couple of degrees until now, May 10th. The highest it reached after the finish of what I call the temperature bloom was 65 and the lowest was 63.3. That was with me opening and closing the one AC vent we have in the basement and trying to keep it between 62-65 degrees. I tried to keep track of the bubbling but lost that battle . I remember that it was actively bubbling once about every 20 seconds or so on May 8th and had virtually stopped bubbling yesterday May 9th in the evening. The 14th will be 2 weeks in the primary and since I’ve decided not to move it to secondary, I plan to keep it in primary for two more weeks (May 27th ) at which time I plan to bottle.
When it gets to even "once ever 5 seconds" I am done worrying about temp control.
How does that fit with everything you said about temperatures? Again, thanks for your help!!! The pic below shows my temp graph. When I taped the wifi thermometer on the side of the vessel it first read 80 degrees because I had kept the unit in a drawer on the porch. As I said, I pitched the wort at 72 and then took primary and thermometer to the basement at 1530!
It should be a great beer. My stout that is 1/2 on tap now, had a spike about exactly the same temp as yours. Mine was MoreBeer's Sweet Stout kit. Initially, I would have said 'too sweet', but fully knowing it would mellow and finish up, even in a keg in the kegerator. I tried a sip of it this morning, and it's really coming around. Another few weeks, perhaps months, and it will probably fit the 5* reviews it has many of. The initial off flavors it had are going away.
It's not uncommon for people to leave Stouts sit for months. Even porters for that matter. After bottling, I'd set some away and save them as a taste test 6 months to a year after, and just take notes of your opinions with the dates on which you try those bottles. Provided there's good bottling technique and the beer isn't oxidized, you'll see a huge change in character as time goes by.
Most likely, you'll like the last bottle, best.