IPA Critique Wanted - Warrior/Citra, 1.061 OG

Looking for input on the following recipe. I want a dry, clean, tropical, hop forward IPA with low malt character and a smooth, yet bitter taste.

I think any changes to the fermentables and hops would be minor, but comments are still welcome. What worries me is the yeast. I've had this closed vial in my refrigerator since my October 19th order. Actual production date was 2-3 weeks prior to this date.

This is a low OG IPA, but the amount of necessary starter still concerns me. I only have 1 vial. What do you guys suggest if obtaining another vial is out of the question?

4.8 gallon boil
4.0 gallon batch

1.061 OG
1.012 FG
6.5% ABV

2 lbs. Extra Light DME (Boil start)
2 lbs. American 2-Row (148 F mash)
1 lb. 10 oz. Extra Light DME (Flameout addition)
10 oz. Sugar (Flameout addition)
10 oz. Wheat Malt (148 F mash)
5 oz. Crystal 10 (148 F mash)

67 IBUs Rager
Approx. 6 oz. total hops

Boil 60 min, 0.33 oz. Warrior pellet 15.7% (33 IBUs)
Boil 15 min, 0.50 oz. Citra leaf 13.7% (10.5 IBUs)
Boil 10 min, 0.75 oz. Citra (13 IBUs)
Boil 5 min, 0.75 oz. Citra (11 IBUs)

Warm Hopstand 30 min, 1.50 oz. Citra
Dryhop 7 days, 2.00 oz. Citra

1 vial WLP001 starter
(Not sure what size since production date was October 10th -
I'm guessing 30% viability).

make a starter for the yeast vial. yeastcalc is excellent for figuring out multi-step starters (which you will probably need because the yeast viability will be rather low), so it will probably want a very large starter or multi steps of 1-2 liters.

Only other thing is I would skip the sugar and replace with extract for the desired OG, but that's just me, I normally don't use sugar until Im in IIPA range. I would think your FG will come down to 1.008 - 1.010 with the sugar in there.

Thanks. I'd really like to know the exact amount of starter needed though. Looks like I'll need to make a 0.9 liter starter and then step up to another 0.9 liter starter, with 3 oz. DME added during each stage for 170 billion cells. Would that be better than a one stage, 1.8 liter starter with 6 oz. of DME? I'm using intermittent shaking.

I only have 4 lbs. of DME on hand. I wanted to brew with what I had (also saving some for the starter). Without the sugar in there, my OG will drop into the mid 1.050s and I don't want that. The majority of this beer is extract anyway. I usually have a tough time hitting 1.012 FG without some sugar in addition to mashing what grains I have low.

I plugged your numbers into the Mr. Malty calculator: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html. It takes production date into account, and with a simple starter it says you only need about a 1.6 liter starter. I think the sugar is a good idea to offset the unfermentability of the extract.

I'm getting 2 vials for 1.34 liters with mrmalty.

Oh wow, my mistake! I didn't look at the # of vials. Sorry. Maybe use the stepping up calculator then.

Plugging in your numbers I see that a 1.8 liter starter won't get you there. 2 steps at 0.9 or 1 liter looks good to get the number of cells you need. I have often read that with the proper handling and care the viability estimates are rather conservative but there's really no way to know without counting cells. I would do 2 times 1.0 liter at 1.040 gravity starter personally.

As a side note I failed to think about the typical higher fg with extract and that in relation to your sugar addition. seems like you've got some sound reasoning there.