Yeast, in a pinch...

So I'm brewing with Pete yesterday, thinking I have a few packets of American Ale yeast downstairs in the fridge... I don't. Pete says he does, and he'll bring me one over to brew with. He gets here with the bad news that he doesn't have any yeast either, except for a Wheat beer yeast. Nuts. We went ahead with the brew anyway, an American Pale Ale with a good load of hops and no crystal malts.. just a touch of Chocolate for color and taste. Like, a couple ounces, really.

I go out on a limb and decide to rack the Oro de Maggie out of primary where it's been for just over a week and pitch this new beer into that carboy on the yeast slurry. The Oro de Maggie looks like it's starting to wind down anyway.. After racking, it appears on the hydrometer that that ain't the case, cause I'm seeing 1.032 on the dial where the beer started at like 1.054. Tastes like honey from the vial, and no sourness.. but a good flavor from what's developed so far. This pic on the left is that beer in secondary, where it puked up its guts through the airlock onto the counter top last night when the activity level went to nuclear level. WTF??? I dunno. It's got a big chunk of activity on the top, but the majority of the activity seems to be coming from the bottom of the bottle.. lots of carbonation comin' from the bottom there, like a wine or mead ferment. Pretty weird.

So, I racked the new beer into the Oro de Maggie original container, and this morning it seems to be going well.. despite some issues yesterday. Here's a pic of the new beer just minding it's own business next to the beer fridge:

The same low foam fermentation typical of the last ferment with this yeast is evident here, and I expect a long, drawn out ferment here as well. This one has loads of hops coming from the airlock though, and I don't plan to age this one to sour it. I'm just gonna drink it young when the fermentation is over.

Just a note on yesterdays brew session.. me and Pete did our first no-sparge brew on an 11 gallon scale, and in fact, it worked like a charm! We had 20 lbs of grain in the tun, and after the rest at 151 degrees with 1.25 quarts per lb, we just went ahead and loaded the kettle up with almost the entire remaining amount of sparge water we had sitting at 180 degrees. My efficiency is set at 76% for this brew rig, and we came out right on the nose for this brew set like that. In fact, no noticeable loss in efficiency between sparge, batch sparge and no-sparge. That, and two hours into the session we were running off the one single, big volume of wort into the boil kettle. That's just sick. A whole new speed record set right there, kids. I should mention that the wort stopped flowing with 9 gallons into the kettle... but I just went out with my spatula and made a couple slices in the top of the mash bed and the wort came gushing out like I've never seen. Really interesting thing right there, I thought.

Also, just a note to say that we got *almost* all the sparge water in in that one shot.. there was like a gallon that didn't fit in there right off, but that got added just after the sparge started and we ran off the first gallon with no recirculation needed... I think with 17-18 lbs of grain in the recipe, we would have fit it all. So yep, I can recommend this no-sparge method entirely now. I like it.