1st recipe - Totally hopped out - malt balanced - IPA

I have been inspired to attempt to design the beer I am truly seeking in homebrewing. Thanks to my recent first taste of Loose Cannon IPA and Yoopers House Pale Ale I've gone to the drawing board and come up with this recipe.

I have never put one together but I am seeking a good hoppy beer with a malt balance. I know it's a bit ridiculous with all the .5 oz additions but I'm hoping to get some bitterness out of this but then finishing with strong citrus notes.

I'll call it Big Lick Blues IPA

Honest opinions please! I don't want to brew it if it looks terrible!!!!
Help a newb out


Grain
7 lbs - Thomas Fawcett Optic Pale Malt
3 lbs - Weyermann Vienna
1 lb - Caramel Munich
8 oz - Briess 2 Row Caramel 20

Hops
Magnum .25 oz @ 60 mins
Centennial .25 oz @ 60 mins
Centennial .5 oz @ 15 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 10 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 5 mins

Summit Pellets 1 oz @ Dry

Mash in @ 154 -- 60 mins
Mash out @ 175 -- 10 mins

I think with that amount of hops in a recipe that "Malt Balance" must be a relatively subjective term... lol...

I appreciate your advice - I have tamed the beast some

For me, I like most of the recipe. 2 things if you are looking for critique:

1) Based on my own trial and error, as well as info from Ray Daniel's book, many good IPA's use about 8% Crystal. What you have there is 4%. Given you are looking for malt balance, personally I would increase the crystal malt to at least 8%. This beer is going to be YUMMY given the amount of melanoidin-ish malts you are using. I typically go for 10% crystal in my malty beers.

2) I feel you should get rid of the 30 minute addition. Since I have switched to 20 minute flavor additions I have been happier with my beers. Now, your additions at 10 and 0 will bring some nice aroma and depth of flavor to the beer so keep those.

Side note: Decrease the mash out temp to 168F-170F. IMO, 175 is tempting tannins... but I could be wrong.

If you lived near me, I would pay to try that beer. It sounds delicious!

Depending on what you define as balanced, you might have what you want (it is an IPA after all). The amount of "sweet" malts looks good, but maybe add a little more base malt?

You have 1 oz of high AA hops as bittering hops, but all your other hops, time-wise, are flavor/aroma hops. Let us know how it turns out.

I've made a more "extreme" IPA that turned out really good. Tons of hops and a strong malt backbone:

Hopple

9lb Maris Otter
3lb Six-row
1lb Vienna
1lb Munich
12oz Crystal 120

Hop Schedule (all hops are .5oz unless otherwise stated)

Boil 50 minutes Chinook, citra
40 minutes Chinook, citra
35 minutes Chinook
30 minutes Chinook, citra
25 minutes Summit
20 minutes Summit, nelson sauvin
15 minutes Summit
10 minutes Summit
5 minutes Nelson sauvin, citra
Flameout 1oz Chinook

dry hop for 1 week after bubbling stops
1oz chinook
1oz summit

How much aroma/flavor does dry hopping bring out?

This is what I'm going with - I'll report back on how it turns out


Thomas Fawcett Optic Pale Malt 8 lbs, 0 oz
Weyermann Vienna 3 lbs, 0 oz
Caramel Munich 1 lbs, 8 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 6 0 lbs, 8 oz


Magnum .5 oz @ 60 mins
Centennial .5 oz @ 60 mins

Centennial .5 oz @ 20 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 10 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 5 mins

Summit .5 oz @ 0 mins

SAFALE US-05 American Ale

I ended up changing the hops around on this one but I am so happy with the final result. It is hands down the best beer I have made to this point and the first one that tastes like it came from a brewery!

It is dark amber in color with very full hop body showing through the sweetness of the malt. It was smooth all the way down and at 7% or more ABV it packs a bit of a punch once finished!

I'm going to do a side by side comparison to Clipper City's Loose Cannon tomorrow which is what I was trying to do a spin off of but no matter how they compare this is a really good beer that I will be brewing again soon!

Thomas Fawcett Optic Pale Malt 8 lbs, 0 oz
Weyermann Vienna 3 lbs, 0 oz
Caramel Munich 1 lbs, 8 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 6 0 lbs, 8 oz


Magnum 1 oz @ 60 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 20 mins
Summit .5 oz @ 10 mins
Cascade .5 oz @ 5 mins
Cascade .5 oz @ 0 mins

SAFALE US-05 American Ale

Sorry for the blurry cellphone pics but here is a look at my creation after 3 weeks in the bottle