Becks Clone Recipe

Hello hello. I am new to brewing, but have just completed 2 brews. 1 pilsner and 1 Bavarian Heffe-Weissen. (Both Extract, and very good beers) I am fermenting a guinness clone from "Clone Brews"currently. I now want to brew a german Lager, particularily Becks. Does anyone know where I may find a clone recipe for this? Been looking for a while with no luck. Thanks.

Reply to
Matt
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Belgian Ale

Belgian Ale

Classification: Belgian ale, all-grain Source: Robert Aves ( snipped-for-privacy@softnet.com), r.c.b., 2/26/95

In response to your request about a recipe for Belgian style Ale, here is a full grain recipe that i brewed and actually came out quite close to style.! Ingredients: 8.5 lbs. 2-row pale malt 1.5 lbs. Munich Malt 4 oz. Crystal Malt (35 Lovibond) 1 oz. Chocolate Malt 1 lb. Demerrara sugar 1/2 tsp Gypsum Mash & Sparge each 1 oz. Hallertau (3.8%) 3/4 oz. Stryian Goldings(5.0%) 1/2 oz. Saaz (3.5%) 1 Tsp Irish Moss Chimay Yeast starter (1.5 Qts.) Procedure: Mash in with 12 qts. water @ 122 degrees F. and rest 30 min. Raise to

140 F and rest 10-15 min. Raise to 150 F and wait till starch is converted(90 min.) Mash out at 168 F and rest 10 min. Sparge with 168 F water to collect 23-24 litres(5.75-6.0 Gallons) Boil for 70-90 min. with the following hop schedule.-- 1 oz. Hallertau for 65-70 min. 1/2 oz. Stryian Goldings for 65 min.-- 1/4 oz. S. Goldings for 40 min. 1/2 oz. Saaz for the final 3 min. -- Cool to pitching temperature(68-70F) and pitch yeast starter. I racked this brew when primary fermentation was done and added 1/4 oz. of Saaz to the secondary (dry hop) and let sit for 2 weeks before bottling. Added 3/4 cup of dextrose to prime. Make sure you let this beer condition in the bottle for at least 3 months before sampling. Actually it gets better after 6 months in the bottle. By the way, this recipe is for 5 U.S. gallons and you may want to increase or decrease the amount of grains depending on the efficiency of your system. My starting gravity was 1.068 and finished off at 1.012.( about 7.4% A/V). Specifics: OG: 1068 FG: 1012

Always keep your friends close and your enemies closer

Reply to
Robert Myers

Isn't Beck's a German Lager?

Reply to
Josh Button

---- ---- ---- My thoughts exactly. Not only that, Becks is a very light dry lager so there's no place for munich, crystal, chocolate or dark sugar. Anyway, Becks is made to the purity law so there's definitely no sugar in it. At a guess, its made with straight pils malt about 1.5-2Lov and maybe a little carapils or carafoam for body. The dominating flavour of Becks is the hop flavour/aroma - not much malt. I've tried varios methods of hopping to try to duplicate it without success. IMO they use a very late addition hop extract to get the flavour - probably just before bottling. It would also use a neutral lager yeast not an ale yeast. Steve W.

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Reply to
QD Steve

Correct, their website describes the beer as "fresh 'hoppy' bouquet" and "slightly fruity" which to me would describe Northdown, Tettnang and/or Hersbrucker possibly. Hersbrucker for boiling, Tettnanger for finishing & Northdown for aroma (or hopbacked maybe?).

I'd go with the Pils base malt also and maybe a sprinkle of 10L or 20L Crystal for slight coloring & as you said Carapils for head.

Not much is published by Becks Re: their beers, so unless you have what I call Perfect Palate (akin to Perfect Pitch in the music world) it would be hard to nail down exact ingredients.

The (lager) yeast would have to be a strain that provides a "dry, clean finish" & there are many German varieties that do just that.

Experiment!!! I may just try this out to see for myself.

Kent

Reply to
blah

Well after a little investigation, I found that the most likely yeast to use is a Beligian lager strain. That said,I do not have the equipment nor experiance to attempt an all grain brew. I wonder how one could do this with extract. I wonder if you use the lightest extract you can find, along with the hops described before, if something close to Becks can be found? Cheers.

Reply to
Matt

I don't think you can clone Becks with an extract beer. It's hard enough with all-grain. However, that said, if you plan to produce a light style dry lager using light malt dried extract and hops to suit the style and ferment with the right yeast at the right temperature, you can produce a very good beer. If you expect it to be like Becks and it isn't, you could be dissapointed, where if you target your brewing to making *a* light lager and it comes out that way, you're be happy with the results. Good brewing, Steve W.

Reply to
QD Steve

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