Brewing Bitter with Lager Yeast

[medlington]

Hi,

This cold weather has stopped my brewing in its tracks as I havent got anywhere that seems to be consistantly warm enough to store my bottles for secondary ferment.

The last brew I did successfully was a Coopers European Lager and I've read that this is one of the few kits that contains proper Lager yeast. This brew was remakably fizzy and the fermentation went really well. I've heard that the lager yeast likes to ferment at much lower temperaturs than bitter yeast and think this could be why.

So my idea is to get another brew on but to use lager yeast instead of the yeast supplied in the kits, would it taste wrong if I used lager yeast to brew bitter? I noticed a much stronger smell to the lager yeast which the lager did taste of at first however as it has matured this taste has almost dissapeared.

Would the taste dissapear in a bitter or would this just be plain wrong?

 

[Mark1964]

You can buy a proper lager yeast that ferments at about 6 deg c and for about 21 days but if you dont want to go that far a normal dried lager yeast would work well at 18 deg c. As for using lager yeast for bitter dont know if it will work as yeast gives beer quite alot of its character.

 

[unclepumble]

It does not matter what style you are after I.e the base wort, (malt extract kit) if you pitch a true lager yeast you are brewing a lager, not a bitter.

The fundamental difference between beer style ale or lager is the yeast used.

You will still get a decent beer but it will be lager not bitter.

UP

 

[Aleman]

Lager yeasts used outside their fermentation range (Particularly at the high end) produce a lot of funky flavours . . .more so than an ale yeast fermented cool

 

[medlington]

Thanks for the advice, I didnt realise it was all to do with the yeast.

I might just stick to the Coopers European kits through this cold spell.