Some advice on my Porter Plz

[Tigerpunch]

Porter Project:
I used Wyeast Scottich Ale yeast and grew it for 2 days, changing the wort in the Erlenmeyer twice.
Sparged my grains and brought wort to boil and added DME and extract. Upon completion of boil, I chilled it to 78 degrees, poured into a 6.5 gallon fermentation bucket, pitched yeast and sealed the lid on and put in the air lock. After 12 hours, the temp settled off at 70 degrees. After 24 hours, the following has happened:
1) temperature rose from 70 to 74 degrees. This is a concern, because I read that scottish ale yeast has an optimum temp between 55-70 degrees.
I have it in a very cool place with a fan blowing on it and the temp is not coming down. Is this a concern? Should I try something else to get the temp down, or just wait it out?

2) The Kraeusen on top of the wort rose so high that it flooded my air lock. Resin and residue clogged the air lock and the lid was so heaved, it dang near looked like the lid was gonna blow off. I moved the bucket to what I felt was a safe location, and removed the lid. I cleaned off and re-sanitized the lid and airlock, and I took a sanitized spoon and scooped off all the Kraeusen and scraped off the residue from the sides of the fermentation bucket. My concern is, did opening the lid hurt my beer? It's not like I had a choice in the matter, but, I just want to know if it is still okay, or is it ruined now? Did removing the Kraeusen potentially harm my finished product?

Any advice on the following would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[drderelict]

ok, a few things here. first, don't worry. chances are your beer is fine, provided you sanitized everything that came in contact with the wort/beer post-boil. fermentation itself will cause the temperature of the beer to rise, and if your kraeusen is blowing through the airlock then the yeasties are doing their job admirably. (yes, there is a chance of off-flavors, but RDWHAHB. if it gets up into the upper 80s, start looking for a trash can to fill w/ cool water: a bath for your fermenter.)

opening the lid or removing the airlock from a primary fermenter is unlikely to cause oxidation because so much CO2 (heavier than oxygen) is being produced that it just pushes the oxygen out. if everything was sanitized properly, you're probably ok.

i suggest purchasing a blow-off assembly or simply running some tubing from your airlock (if it's a 3-piece) into a vessel of sanitized water for at least the first few days of primary fermentation. you've now experienced the mess of a blow-through; you can prevent it in the future with $2 worth of equipment.

avoid removing the kraeusen whenever possible (unless you're trying to harvest the top-fermenting yeast), but you shouldn't worry about it ruining your beer. keep calm and brew on!

 

[Tigerpunch]

Thanks for the info. I got nervous last night when the temp of the fermenter rose to 75, and I filled my bathtub with cold water and put the fermentation bucket in the bath. As of this morning, the temp has come down to 69 degrees. I took a temp reading of the water in the tub, and it is sitting at a balmy 65 degrees, so apparently this is working.

As for the Kraeusen, I have read articles supporting it's removal and also supporting leaving it. So I guess time will tell how it turns out.

Thanks again,