Perfecting the Stella clone...

[The Carbonator]

Hi guys,

I have run out of brews in the garage, so im brewing again
Its good to see a lot of newbies posting.

I have just put my first batch since december........I had way too much beer. Plus, there was money and time constraints.
You will probably all be disgusted to hear that I have thrown away all my little yeast starters - I figured they are all too old to use. ( I almost cried )

Anyway my first one is a simple Bavarian Lager with some saaz. (they were lying around)

Over the summer, I really got a taste for light lagers, like Stella Artois and, well, Stella.
SO, since im making a comeback, I've decided to dedicate all my brewing time to perfecting the Stella clone.

I have read some recipes, and the country brewer says its just a Wals Dry Lager kit with Hallertau, but I suspect Im going to have to use some sort of european yeast.

Any yeasty suggestions?

I will probably end up doing it all-grain, but to start with I want to ease my way back into the brew scene with some simple kits, maybe a partial here and there.

Anyway, I shall keep y'all posted on my Stella-perfecting quest!

Cheers

[lethaldog]

Welcome back carbo, Wyeast czech pilsner for the yeast and i have a kit recipe but cant help with an AG just yet

[drsmurto]

Budvar recipe from G&G. I prefer Budvar to Stella but they really arent that dissimilar so it may be a starting point for you at least...

Budvar!

Cheers
DrSmurto

[Cervecero]

Hi mate I am a newbie, just a season doing it, and weather for lagers is back, I want to do a stella clon as well........ can I join you in your quest?

[NickMoore]

from the dave's home brew shop site

Black Rock Dry Lager,
1kg Body Pack (60% dex 40% maltodex),
500g Wheat Malt,
20g Hallertau Hops (steeped 10 min),
Saflager Yeast.

Note the wheat malt.

[Cervecero]

any other ideas? contributions?

[Danzar]

from the dave's home brew shop site

Black Rock Dry Lager,
1kg Body Pack (60% dex 40% maltodex),
500g Wheat Malt,
20g Hallertau Hops (steeped 10 min),
Saflager Yeast.

Note the wheat malt.

Definitely the wheat malt.

You may as well start with that but I'd suggest you go with the WLP801 (White Labs) or the Wyeast 2278 (what Lethal said).

I don't think the Saflager is a clean enough fermenting yeast for a Stella.

Cold condition for a couple of weeks.

I'd be interested to see how this goes.

[111222333]

Coopers Bavarian Lager
700g Wheat Malt
500g Yellow Box honey
150g Crystal
14g Cascade 10min
22 Liters

Very Niice

[derfly]

Ive got the following in the bottle for 2 1/2 months now.

Coopers Bavarian
Wheat malt 500g
LDME 500g
Dex 375g

It's actually quite a nice beer but not much like a Stella. The Coopers kit brings along a hint of POR which just doesn't feature in Stella. I'd ditch the Coopers kit and maybe try a Brewcraft Dutch Lager or something similar if I was to try this again.

[lethaldog]

I did a stella a while ago that was pretty close:

Muntons premium pilsner
Brewcraft #62 ( czech kit converter)
500g dried wheat malt extract
and yeast of choice was as above - wyeast czech pilsner 1 litre starter

Give that a go

[lethaldog]

from the dave's home brew shop site

Black Rock Dry Lager,
1kg Body Pack (60% dex 40% maltodex),
500g Wheat Malt,
20g Hallertau Hops (steeped 10 min),
Saflager Yeast.

Note the wheat malt.

Definitely the wheat malt.

You may as well start with that but I'd suggest you go with the WLP801 (White Labs) or the Wyeast 2278 (what Lethal said).

I don't think the Saflager is a clean enough fermenting yeast for a Stella.

Cold condition for a couple of weeks.

I'd be interested to see how this goes.

Saflager is fine for this one as my old boy brews ( my recipe) with saflager and it comes out great.

Not quite as good as the liquid but still very tasty.

[The Carbonator]

My first progress update is in:

After many Coopers Bavarian variations and TCB wetpacks, Im sad to report that it looks like All Grain is the only way to go to replicate a Stella or Pilsner Urqell.

I know its not what you wanted hear........it's not what I wanted to hear either.
(The Stella clone from the country brewer recipes came out with a sickly, cloying sweetness, but it is slowly becoming drinkable. It still has that slight homebrew "tang" taste from the kit, which is easily noticable.)

Anyway, this (my first AG Pils) came out a little sweet, but was a ripper!

Joe Walsh Grains - 5kg total
4.25kg Pilsner
500g Munich
250g Carapils
15L Mash in (76*C)
Hit 66°C for 60 mins
8l mash out - near boiling
Sparge with 20L 84°C, 20mins
55g Saaz 60mins
20g Saaz 30mins
15g Saaz 15mins
15g Saaz Flame Out
2L Starter Pils Urqll @26°C (oops)
21L
OG - 1051
Racked at 1020
FG - 1010
lagered for 2 weeks at 3*C.


BUT...

This extract brew has come out close to the all grain mentioned above.

Will be upping the first addition to 35g next time, and upping the pilsner grain to 500g to get closer to the AG.

Anyway, try this one:

2.5kg DME
250g Pilsner grain steeped 30mins at 75°C.
25g Hallertau 60min
10g Saaz 30mins
10g Saaz 5mins
2L starter of Pils Urqll

OG - 1044
Racked at 1018
lagered for 3 weeks at 3*C.
FG - 1010

So, the quest continues...

[Trough Lolly]

I'm looking for a lager recipe to do this weekend and it looks like I've found it! I'll have a go at your AG variant - which without the munich, looks very much like a standard North German Pilsener that medalled well at the Australian Nationals a couple of years ago!
I've got 50kg of Weyermann Pilsener to get through so this is a good start.
To remain faithful to your recipe, what was the Alpha Acid rating of your Saaz hops?

Cheers,
TL

[The Carbonator]

Cheers TR.

I was originally going to use only pilsener grain for the first time as a base, then build on it.
But the munich was the HB guys input, so I went with it.

The Saaz were 3.8%.

I punched the details into my brewplanner, and got 31 IBUs. If I was to change anything, I would up the first addition to 65gs.
But yeah, very happy with this one.

Have a good one.

[Kevnlis]

Just paid $18.99 for a 6 pack of this! Damn good brew and I wanted to treat myself

I only have a 12L stockpot so I may have a crack at a half AG recipe based on this. Cheers for the starting point. Maybe between you, TL, and myself we can get it perfected

By my calculations your AG version will cost about $0.75, far cry from what the bottle-o charges...

[Steve_]

I recently did a Xtract German Pilsener 3 kg can from Country Brewer (not trying to spruik for them, I just haven't seen it anywhere else), with 200gm Vienna and threw in about 12-15gms Saaz hops at the end, brewed it at about 10 deg for 10 days, racked for a couple of weeks, and only a week after kegging I have to say it tasted a lot like Stella only better. There's a Saflager yeast with the kit which, along with the low brewing temp, seemed to make all the difference. I'm now brewing an exact copy, and I'll be hard pressed to experiment again after how good it tasted.

[Heals]

Carbonator, I'm very keen to try you extract recipe there but I'm a little stumped about two things...

Firstly, when I throw all those ingredients into beersmith I get a total IBU of 21.7. That's even after bumping the hallertauer up to 40gms and the Saaz (Czech Saaz which has an AA of 2.5% - regular stuff isn't available) up to 18g per addition.

Just kinda threw me - I'm sure it's probably something to do with beersmith rather than the recipe but I thought i'd check anyway just to be sure.

The other thing, when you say Pilsner grain, do you mean Carapils? All the "pilsner" grains I can find have to be mashed and cannot be steeped like your recipe states. Am I right in assuming you mean Carapils?

Also, what would you say to upping the LDME to 2.8kg (and upping the hops slightly as well) just to get the beer to sit at around about 5% abv.

[lethaldog]

Pilsner grain does need to be mashed but i dare say that he is talking about a basic mini mash which is just a controlled steep anyway

[Heals]

I'm confused.. controlled steep?

What on earth is a mini-mash?

Is that kinda like the monster-mash?

[lethaldog]

A mini mash is exactly that, A MINI MASH Most people will do this on a stove in a pot and just watch the temp, as long as you use about 2.5 to 3 litres per kilo of grain and keep it at a steady ( say 67*C) for an hour then you have done a mini mash then just wash a little water through the grain and boil the liquid you recieve from the mini mash as you would a maxi mash ( or monster if you like ) You can also buy grain bags to save you having to strain them out.