good recipe? or bad idea?

Im looking for a nice light color with a hoppy hit. Worried it might end up too bitter...

Steeping grains
(155 degrees - 1 gallon)
Pale Malt (Crisp) 1 lb.
12oz caramel 10L
8oz Cara 20L (Castle)

add to ---

Briess Pilsen Unhopped Liquid Malt Extract 6 lb.
Munton & Fison (UK) Light DME- 1 lb.

80 minute boil (3 gallons)

80 min: 1 oz Chinook pellet
40 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet
20 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet
15 min: Whirlfloc tablet
5 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet

Yeast White Labs 001 or the saison 565 (cant decide). I like the peppery side of the 565, but Ive heard some bad things about it....

20 days primary. 10 days dry hop secondary (Cascade 2oz) loose leaf

apologies for the cross-post.

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I'm looking for a nice light color with a hoppy hit. Worried it might end up too bitter...

Steeping grains
(155 degrees - 1 gallon)
Pale Malt (Crisp) 1 lb.
12oz caramel 10L
8oz Cara 20L (Castle)

add to ---

Briess Pilsen Unhopped Liquid Malt Extract 6 lb.
Munton & Fison (UK) Light DME- 1 lb.

80 minute boil (3 gallons)

80 min: 1 oz Chinook pellet
40 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet
20 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet
15 min: Whirlfloc tablet
5 min: 1 oz Horizon pellet

Yeast White Labs 001 or the saison 565 (cant decide). I like the peppery side of the 565, but Ive heard some bad things about it....

20 days primary. 10 days dry hop secondary (Cascade 2oz) loose leaf

Yeah. It's going to be fairly bitter, like a really hoppy IPA, pretty much imperial. You could always drop down to a 60 min boil for the Chinook and take off the 40 min horizon to mild it down. The color should be right. May be a little bit on the darker of the golden side. I would brew it with the 001. That yeast will allow the hop flavors to come through crisp and clean. The Saison would only end up bringing in it's only unique flavors that may add or distract from the hops.

If you like peppery flavors in your IPA, brew one with WLP029. I'm actually drinking one now and it is quite nice. The hops come through but you also get a nice spicy note in the finish.

Two thoughts. First, to make a light colored extract beer, you might think about using a technique called late extract addition. First, you steep your grains (per your recipe above, although I think I would use the full amount of water you will be boiling rather than 1 gallon). Then bring the water to a boil, take it off the heat and add 1/4 - 1/3 or so of the extract, stir like crazy, return to the heat, bring back to boil while stirring like crazy. Add other additions like hops per your schedule. Then, in the final 5 or 10 minutes, take the pot off the heat and add the remaining extract, stir like crazy, etc. This will reduce the carmelization of your wort and produce a lighter color in your beer.

Do you use Beersmith or some other software? You plug in your hops schedule and it will approximate your bitterness in IBUs. If you know a beer that you like, you can check their website and see if they list their IBUs. For example, I'm a big fan of Goose Islands Green Line pale ale and the site says its got 30 IBUs. The thing is that IBUs by themselves don't tell you the whole story, its about balance with the maltiness of the beer.

thanks for the tips all. THis really is a great resource.

Would just using 6lbs of Briess Pilsen DME be ok

instead of

Briess Pilsen Unhopped Liquid Malt Extract 6 lb.
Munton & Fison (UK) Light DME- 1 lb.