So I have been scratching my head the past year how to brew a spruce beer with some Colorado blue spruce tips I picked last year and vacuumed sealed and froze.I bewed a beer with spruce tips that I really liked many years ago. Problem is, now I brew 10 gallon batches, split between 2 fermenters. I would like one to be a spruce ale, the other just an amber ale, as I don't really want 10 gallons of spruce beer. Just 5.
So I just came up with an idea. Brew 10 gallons of mild. Chill the wort. Put 5 gallons of wort into a fermenter, pitch an ale yeast to make 5 gallons of mild.
Meanwhile, draw 1.5 gallons of wort, boil with spruce tips, return that boiled 1.5 gallons after 10 minutes back to the brew kettle, then run the chiller again and put 5 gallons of spruce beer into the second fermenter.
Seems like a lot of work with double handling, which is why I am posting. Welcome to hear better ideas.