I have been working with(and having good luck) a somewhat accelerated fermentation time schedule.
It looks like this:
chill to 60-63 aerate/pitch yeast
Day 1 64.5
Day 2 65
Day 2.5 66
Day 3 67
Day 3.5 68
Day 4 68
Day 4.5 68
Day 5 68
Day 5.5 65
Day 5.75 60
Day 6 55
Day 6.25 50
Day 6.5 45
Day 6.75 40
Day 7 33
Day 8 keg/fine/carbonate
I built a fermentation controller to do this, I load a "profile" and it runs the program. It has 2 probes, one in the center of the wort (Beer), and one in the chamber(fridge). It will then heat/cool to keep the temps to the .1 of a degree( and does a fine job of that). If you look at the logging you will see at the height of fermentation at least 10f of difference. This is on just a 1.040 cream ale with 1056. I then have a camera on the airlock to give me an idea of fermentation, but the controller is really good at telling me. If you look you will see the lag time in the beginning ( no heating or cooling going on) it will then start kicking on much less frequently. When I see little to no airlock movement, and the cycling slow down, I will then pull a sample for a gravity reading. Seems to work pretty much like clockwork.
If you want to see what I am talking about go to
http://taplist.noip.me (that is my digital tap list) if you click on the top right corner (whats fermenting) it will take you to the controller. I am currently in day 5 of the schedule. The camera is here:
http://brewcam.noip.meCheers,
Bryan