Brewing a milk stout (white labs Irish Ale yeast), fermenting in a 6.5g glass carboy. For the first 3 days of ferment room temp was at 78. Now have corrected and it will remain at 65 for two more weeks. Has anyone had this occur (specifically first few days of ferment then corrected to proper temp) where the yeast was forgiving enough and terrible off flavors did not occur?
I'd imagine you're going to get some off flavors fermenting that high, but at least it's a dark beer which tends to hide some mistakes. That's way too high for initial fermentation, which is when temp control is the most crucial to avoid off flavors.
Unfortunately as DrMindbender has pointed out, the initial fermentation is the most important, and I'd imagine that your beer is basically fermented by now (3 days at 78˚F... most likely, yeah). But I'll also suggest that you might be OK. I've never fermented that particular yeast warm but it's possible that you'll come through with just more of a fruity beer than you were expecting, without any real off-flavors. Good luck! Keep us posted!
It is very likely your yeast has produced some fusel alcohols at this point, eventually those fusel alcohols(solvent taste) will turn into fruity esters giving to beer a longer conditioning schedule.
