Femme Fatale Brewing

Been too busy brewin to update! Been making a lot of mead and soda. Weather needs to get cooler so we can start up the beer again!

Tomorrow we are going to bottle up the RIS. It has been conditioning for over 2 weeks now so it should be ready to go into bottles. I am not sure what the final gravity will be. Last I checked it was inching near the 12% ABV mark. It might be a little higher then that but probably not too much.

After we bottle the RIS and clean the carboy, we are going to brew up an American Brown Ale. Very simple beer, perfect for summer get togethers.

The brew day with Peter went awesome. No major issues at all. As you can see we have quite a bit of pizza and drinks to go around!

This was the first beer Femme Fatale did using a starter. We pitched 1100 ML of yeast into 6 gallons of wort. Boy did it take off! It took off too much in fact.

So after cleaning up the mess and putting a blow tube off, the beer continued to do what it was doing best, turning sweet sugars into even sweeter booze. The beer is already at 10% ABV with no off flavors. I can’t wait for this one to age.

After some discussion, we decided to go ahead and enter the Angry Kitty Ale into the Sam Adam’s Longshot Competition. The Angry Kitty Ale has some flaws but even with the flaws, the feedback would be nice to get. So off it went.

We are back baby. Got a big one to brew. Name comes for the Mosin Nagant’s caliber.

Type: All Grain
Date: 3/27/2009

Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Brewer: Femme Fatale Brewing
Boil Size: 7.50 gal     Asst Brewer: Ninja
Boil Time: 60 min     Equipment: Brew Pot (12.5 gal) and Igloo Cooler (10 Gal)
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0     Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount     Item     Type     % or IBU
20.00 lb     Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)     Grain     85.11 %
2.00 lb     Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)     Grain     8.51 %
1.00 lb     Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)     Grain     4.26 %
0.50 lb     Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)     Grain     2.13 %
1.50 oz     Alchemy [15.20 %] (60 min)     Hops     45.8 IBU
1.00 oz     Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min)     Hops     26.1 IBU
1.00 oz     Centennial [10.00 %] (10 min)     Hops     7.3 IBU
2 Pkgs     Nottingham (Danstar #-) [Starter 25 ml]     Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.104 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.024 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.46 %
Bitterness: 79.1 IBU
Calories: 491 cal/pint
Est Color: 47.1 SRM

Hello all. Not much brewing going on right now. We are mostly just planning for our next all grain brew and meads.

Femme Fatale just completed its first all grain batch! We brewed the Scottish Export and it smelled great.

Here is a lovely picture of the mash tun in action.

Wanna give blood now?

More on the beer later!

Femme Fatale Brewing has been hard at work shifting into the next level of home brewing. It hasn’t been cheap either.

The goal is to move into all grain brewing and kegging. Kegging is moving slower then desired but we are almost ready to brew our first all grain batch. All that is left is some minor repare work to the demon box otherwise known as our first mash tun. The darn thing keeps leaking and valve keeps sticking but we figured out why and will fix it soon.

The first all grain batch will be a simple pale ale, otherwise known as Fael Ale. Here is the recipe (note: the hop ratios in the actual brew will not be exact, we are using left over hops to bitter the beer, also, the yeast is left off the recipe but it will be basic dry ale yeast):

Fael Ale
American Pale Ale

Type: All Grain
Date: 9/11/2008

Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Brewer: Femme Fatale Brewing
Boil Size: 6.41 gal    Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min    Equipment: Brew Pot (7.5 gal) and Cooler (48 qt)

Ingredients
Amount    Item    Type    % or IBU
10.00 lb    Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)    Grain    100.00 %
0.25 oz    Liberty [4.30 %] (60 min)    Hops    3.8 IBU
1.00 oz    Sterling [7.50 %] (60 min)    Hops    26.6 IBU
0.25 oz    Liberty [4.30 %] (15 min)    Hops    1.9 IBU
0.25 oz    Liberty [4.30 %] (5 min)    Hops    0.8 IBU
0.25 oz    Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (5 min)    Hops    0.9 IBU
0.25 oz    Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (0 min)    Hops    -

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.055 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.26 %
Bitterness: 33.9 IBU    Calories: 246 cal/pint
Est Color: 3.9 SRM    Color:

Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge    Total Grain Weight: 10.00 lb
Sparge Water: 4.74 gal    Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F    TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE    Mash PH: 5.4 PH

Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge Step Time    Name    Description    Step Temp
60 min    Mash In    Add 12.50 qt of water at 165.9 F    154.0 F

Hopefully it turns out well enough.  It has to, as we need to brew another Throwdown beer and it too is an all grain recipe.

Still not blood oranges but the sweet orange hefeweizen won a local throwdown at the brew club. Glad people liked it. So far I’d have to say the hefe is our best beer.

Next, we brew a simple all grain pale ale. This will be our first all grain beer.

We are going to attempt to make a beer, code named Alta Special Reserve, using manzanita wood, leaves, and berries. We have already used the wood for cooking and it impairs a very unique flavor. Almost a grapewood type flavor but more smoky. The berries and leaves are traditionally used by Native Americans to make cider and tea.