I'm on my 3rd batch so I'm still a neophyte. On Saturday (2 days ago) I brewed a Pumpkin Ale. Within 24 hours there was a lot of bubbling going on in the airlock (temperature was 68-70 degrees). As I live in Florida, and don't own a brewing dedicated fridge, I keep my fermenting bucket in a tub with cold water/ice, covered with a t-shirt to wick up the cold water to keep the temperature below 70
This morning (Monday) I noticed that the temp was creeping up, so I began to drain out the water from the tub to replace it with colder water/ice. By accident I jostled the bucket slightly, and shortly thereafter it stopped bubbling! I should add that after I replaced the water the temp went down to 66-68.
My question is did I kill anything? Have I caused irreparable harm to my pumpkin ale? Or...is it okay and just give it a couple of days before I do my next gravity test to see where I am? Is this a function that the temp went down, slowing down the fermentation process?
Thanks for any assistance you can give here.
Cheers,
Peter