A protocol is proposed to generate Bell states in two non-directly interacting qubits by means of repeated measurements of the state of a central ancilla connected to both qubits. An optimal measurement rate is found that minimizes the time to stably encode a Bell state in the target qubits, being of advantage in order to reduce detrimental effects from possible interactions with the environment. The quality of the entanglement is assessed in terms of the concurrence and the distance between the qubits state and the target Bell state is quantified by the fidelity.