Splitting a 12 gallon batch into two 6 gallon batches...

I've always brewed 6 gallon batches, but have the capacity to brew larger batches. Since both of my kegs are going to be empty at the same time in about 2 weeks (party coming up), and I wasn't feeling up for another double brew day, I designed a Northern German Altbier that also loosely fit parameters for a Brown Ale... though this brown ale will have a large proportion of German Pils malt  . While I intended on doing a 12 gallon batch, my 60 qt boil kettle looked pretty full with about 13 gal, and about 2 gal boiled off- I ended up with about 10.5 gallons, which was great! Once the boil was over and the wort chilled, I split split the batch into 2 fermenters- for the Altbier I used WLP029 (German Ale/Kolsch), while I pitched WLP007 (Dry English) into what I'm calling the Brown Ale. The only other difference is I will be dry hopping the Brown Ale with 1 oz of Northern Brewer once fermentation is complete. I'm excited to see what differences emerge.

Has anyone done anything like this- brewing 2 different batches of beer from the same boil? Anyone do it often?

I'll let you know how things look as these 2 beers develop!

Cheers!

That is my Standard Proceedure.  You get 5 more gallons for about an extra hour and $10-15.  Plus the chance to mix and match yeast and dry/keg hop schedules is fun.

Hi,
  Yes - this is called parti-gyle brewing and I did an entire episode on it a few episodes back on the BeerSmith podcast - see the BeerSmith blog and look for the episode called "Multiplying your beer"

Brad

You're actually right to split it into two different styles. I've found that you have almost no chance of having a split batch come out as the same beer after they're split up. I'v found that even kegging some and bottling some can subtly change the character of the beers.