Budweiser Clone

[iBooz2]

A mate of mine who is not a big drinker, (he really looks after his liver and pancreas with diet etc.) and I have to twist his arm to drink more than a few stubbies say when we are away camping.

Well he has a birthday coming up and I want to brew him a keg of American style beer as every time I see him with a commercial beer its either Corona or Bud.  He lived in the US for a while so that is fair enough.

I don't want to probe too much into his favourite beers as he obviously knows I brew lots of beer/s and he will be on to me in a flash.  Want to keep it as a bit of a surprise.  Suspect I will have to do a couple of batches before I get close to the real thing plus I want to lager it for a couple of months before his birthday.   I will need to get first one on the go ASAP to see where its at.

Interested in feedback on the attached recipe I put together this morning.  TIA.

Edited January 2, 2022 by iBooz2

[ben 10]

I would not use late hops.

I have done a coroana with polenta and that worked quite well, I have also used rice and it is very good too.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Agree with @disgruntled. If you are looking to clone I would move the saaz to 25 or 30 mins and adjust the bittering hop.  Grist looks good to me. It's basically like an Asian beer. Mash temps good. Want it as dry as possible. I think the big difference with it is the yeast. You don't want lager yeasts emphasising malt. The yeast you have chosen is the equivalent of wyeast Danish lager I believe which I have used a lot and it would be a pretty good choice IMO. WLP840 is the budweiser yeast I believe but not sure if it's readily available.

[iBooz2]

Thanks fellas @disgruntled and @Greenyinthewestofsydney , points taken on board.  My mate does like the 1911 Carlsberg Pilsner I brew and its 10 % flaked corn and I have just done another brew day of that exact one as a backup.

From the research I have done on Bud clones it has a high content of flaked rice so was going to use this even though I have a big bag of flaked corn here in stock.  Yes Greeny the yeast was my pic given what I could get my hands on locally ATM and I already use the Copenhagen in the 1911 Pilsner so not a problem with a starter as I have one ready to go and 2 x spare liquid packs.

With the hops I have a couple of 100 g bags of Saaz and the same of Tettnanger, the later is 2017 harvest so was hoping to use those up before they are duds.  They have been kept in the freezer all the while.  Don't know why I was thinking of the late hop, might have been that I was playing around with the % tool in Brewfather software to see what it could do.

Anyway thanks for the tips and hopefully I can get a nice beer for him.

Edited January 2, 2022 by iBooz2

[jamiek86]

@iBooz2 isn't it also supposed to be aged/lagered in a beechwood cask? I know the stubbie used to say that but thinking that was olden days. Wouldn't think can pump it out like that now. 

[iBooz2]

On 1/3/2022 at 1:55 PM, jamiek86 said:

@iBooz2 isn't it also supposed to be aged/lagered in a beechwood cask? I know the stubbie used to say that but thinking that was olden days. Wouldn't think can pump it out like that now. 

@jamiek86, Yeah you are probably right.  I have (obviously) no intention of lagering it a Beech-wood cask.  It will be just a novelty brew for my mate and just hope it comes off OK with him and his mates.  Good fun to try these new brews and see how they turn out and learn from them now that I am doing predominately AG (in recent brewing history).

Edited January 17, 2022 by iBooz2

[jamiek86]

@iBooz2 yes I knew that when I said it a rice lager will be good one to try.

[iBooz2]

My 4 kg bag of flaked rice has turned up so have tweaked my recipe to get ready for a buddy brew day.

Have upped the boil to 90" as I remember somewhere that @Greenyinthewestofsydney said he had trouble with clarity with rice until he upped the boil to 90".  Don't know if that was with a cereal mash or flaked rice grains so for the time being 90" it is.

Have moved the late hop to 30" as suggested and tweaked the bittering hops to be about centre of the scale.

Wondering if dry enzyme would help make this much more drier or should I just stick to the chosen yeast?

Also have purchased a SS counter-flow chiller so may use that too if I get it all connected up and working ok in time for this batch as @MitchBastard , is all for fast chilling of lager wort so I hope it is worth the expense and effort.

[Shamus O'Sean]

2 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

My 4 kg bag of flaked rice has turned up so have tweaked my recipe to get ready for a buddy brew day.

Have upped the boil to 90" as I remember somewhere that @Greenyinthewestofsydney said he had trouble with clarity with rice until he upped the boil to 90".  Don't know if that was with a cereal mash or flaked rice grains so for the time being 90" it is.

Have moved the late hop to 30" as suggested and tweaked the bittering hops to be about centre of the scale.

Wondering if dry enzyme would help make this much more drier or should I just stick to the chosen yeast?

Also have purchased a SS counter-flow chiller so may use that too if I get it all connected up and working ok in time for this batch as @MitchBastard , is all for fast chilling of lager wort so I hope it is worth the expense and effort.

4 kg of Flaked Rice suggests you might want to make a few more batches of this.  Not a bad thing.

90" boil.  It's only extra water.  Go for it.

Dry enzyme.  That's a good question.  I think the Copenhagen yeast would get you to the 1.009 FG on its own.  Add the Enzyme and you could get close to 1.000 for an ABV of nearly 6%.  My instinct is to not use the dry enzyme.

Mmm.  Counterflow chiller when ambient is 33°C this weekend.  Last weekend, using the Grainfather counterflow chiller (ambient high 20's), I got my brew down to 28-29°C, which was okay because I was using Voss Kveik yeast which likes to work at 30+°C.  The counterflow chiller you have bought may be more effective.  However, you still might have to cool your wort further in a temperature controlled environment before you pitch your lager yeast.  Just something to think about.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

2 hours ago, iBooz2 said:

My 4 kg bag of flaked rice has turned up so have tweaked my recipe to get ready for a buddy brew day.

Have upped the boil to 90" as I remember somewhere that @Greenyinthewestofsydney said he had trouble with clarity with rice until he upped the boil to 90".  Don't know if that was with a cereal mash or flaked rice grains so for the time being 90" it is.

Have moved the late hop to 30" as suggested and tweaked the bittering hops to be about centre of the scale.

Wondering if dry enzyme would help make this much more drier or should I just stick to the chosen yeast?

Also have purchased a SS counter-flow chiller so may use that too if I get it all connected up and working ok in time for this batch as @MitchBastard , is all for fast chilling of lager wort so I hope it is worth the expense and effort.

Yes the 90 min boil definitely helped clarity as did the fast chill which I do for lagers as well like Mitch. 

I always use the cheap woolies rice and cereal mash it as the flaked stuff is 6 times the price so don't know if the clarity issues happen with the flaked stuff or not.

Personally I wouldn't do the enzyme. My asian lagers regularly finish about the 1.006 to 1.008 type mark with 20-25% rice. That is about 4 to 6 points below normal full malt brews with the yeasts I have used which is mainly W34/70 and WY2001 Budvar.

This article seems to back it up and is an interesting read in general. Starting at 11 Plato to get a 5% ABV is a FG of 1.006 but that seems to be with 30% rice as part of the grist.

https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/i6AGSeKu6Z/#:~:text=Budweiser has a standard 5,traditional American adjunct mash procedure.