Femme Fatale Brewing

We finally located a fridge that we were happy with (special thanks to my wife who found it, found a coupon for it, and more importantly let me buy it). Orginally, we were going to buy a used fridge or freezer. Then, we thought about the long term power costs associated with running the fridge or freeze and the higher risk of something breaking. Looking at it long term, it made more sense to acquire a new unit.

The problem with buying new of course is the sunk cost is much greater. Fridges and freezers the size we needed were cheaper then the larger models but still could run 400+ USD easy.

We were waiting for some to go on clearance and finally a fridge did at home depot. It is a 9.8 cubic foot magic chef fridge. We got it 40% off retail using clearance pricing and a coupon. The cost to run it per year is 28 dollars which is really good, especially when stacked against older used models which could be that much A MONTH.

To make it have more space inside, we are going to unscrew the inside door panel, cut a piece a sheet metal, and screw that in its place. This should give us about 6+ more inches inside the fridge. We will then custom install 2 taps for kegs (we still need to get our kegging system but it is all a work in process).

We also still need the external temperature controller for when we use the fridge for carboy fermenting. Why you say put the carboy in the fridge? Lagers. Plus even with ale, the more temperature control the better. Variations in temperature are not good for beer.

So all in all, a big investment for brewing but a good one. The fridge will serve multiple purposes (we plan to store hops and extra grain in it too, maybe booze in the freezer part).

Hefeweizen has taken off fast and strong.

Smells like an oranges and awesome.

I wasn’t able to find any blood oranges locally. So instead of a blood orange hefe it will be a sweet orange hefe. I am not yet sure if I want to just use orange zet and forgo to flesh (some brewers recommended this)  since the orange flesh I got is not as sweet as the blood orange flesh would have been. I am not sure. I still plan to make the “orange tea” and add it into the wort after it is boiled.

So after all the brewing I am doing with custom recipes, I will be left with some extra ingredients. I don’t want to waste anything, especially with the price of hops and grains what they are, so I decided to make a pale ale from the left over hops and grains.
The name comes from the fact the ingredients are “left behind” from being brewed into sweet beer heaven.

This will also be my first 90 minute boil and all grain batch. I went with a 90 minute boil to get the most out of the bittering hops. I will be using my mash tun that I built a month ago. Hopefully it works as intended!

First all grain recipe using left off stuff:

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Left Behind Pale Ale
Brewer: Femme Fatale Brewing
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.31 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 7.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 40.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU
8.00 lb       Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        87.91 %
1.00 lb       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)     Grain        10.99 %
0.10 lb       Rye, Flaked (2.0 SRM)                     Grain        1.10 %
1.00 oz       Sterling [7.50 %]  (90 min)               Hops         30.0 IBU
0.25 oz       Sterling [7.50 %]  (20 min)               Hops         4.2 IBU
0.25 oz       Liberty [4.30 %]  (20 min)                Hops         2.4 IBU
0.25 oz       Sterling [7.50 %]  (5 min)                Hops         1.4 IBU
0.25 oz       Liberty [4.30 %]  (5 min)                 Hops         0.8 IBU
0.50 oz       Williamette [5.50 %]  (5 min)             Hops         2.0 IBU
1 Pkgs        California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)       Yeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 9.10 lb
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Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp
45 min        Mash In            Add 11.38 qt of water at 170.5 F    158.0 F

I got my hands on some corny kegs and what do I find in one of them? A few gallons of 10 year old beer, still carbonated and only slightly sour. Pretty cool.

Still working on it but we are now selling the Femme Fatale shirts and other random stuff from Warpstorm. I wish I could lower the price on the Emo Sun shirt but they charge a lot for black printing. Here is the direct link to the store.