Unless my thermometer is WAY off (doubtful) there's no way it reached 170.
I tasted the SG sample* after I read the OG and it tasted fine, quite bitter from the hops, but then it's an IPA so that's probably expected. It smelled wonderful brewing so I'm not going to spend two weeks worrying when I've already gotten two positive replies and I've had about five beers since I finished brewing it!
Thanks everybody who's participated in this thread, btw. This forum is a really great place to learn about brewing, I'm already spending too much time here!! It's distracting me big time from my other useless internet pursuits!!! LOL
I already can't wait to brew my sweet stout that's up next!
I have decided that bottling with the carboy went just fine, and I'm keeping the plastic bucket as the primary fermenter. If I decide on secondaries for whatever reason in the future, I'll get another glass carboy, but for now I'm happy with this arrangement. There's going to be slight losses from transferring, so I'll start with 5.5 gallon batches and bottle from the carboy from here out, at least until something better presents itself.
Although bottling is a pain in the butt so I might just invest in a keg or two in the somewhat near future anyway lol.
*not that my pallet is advanced enough to glean any useful info from that, but hey, you can't put the sample back in the bucket, so might as well, right?