Recipe Critique: Nebulous IPA

So this is a modified version of my Stardust IPA: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=544255

It'll be 5 gallons or just under, aiming for a 6.5 gallon boil size for 90 mins
Malts:
2-Row Pale 10Lb
Crystal 20L 1Lb
White Wheat 1Lb
Goldpils Vienna 1Lb

Going to mash at 155F for 60mins

Hops:
Warrior - full boil
Galaxy 1oz - 5mins
Galaxy 1oz - 2 mins

Flameout:
Citra 1oz
Galaxy 1oz
Motueka 1oz
Calypso 1oz

At 170F and hold around 155F for about 45 mins:
Galaxy 1oz
Motueka 1oz
Calypso 1oz
Citra 1oz

Fermenting with Safale-05

Dryhop at the end of fermentation (and after racking to secondary):
Galaxy 2oz for 4-5 days, or however long my patience holds

What do you all think? I am happy so far with my original Galaxy hop bomb, but am wishing it was slightly more dynamic, so I added Citra and increased the Motueka and Calypso by 1oz. I just ordered all the ingredients and hope to start brewing by early-mid next week whenever it arrives. What I'm going for is a very tropical, tasty, amazing smelling IPA. I don't want it to be a bitter bomb and I really dislike earthy IPAs. I find the market oversaturated with piney and grapefruit IPAs that are all starting to taste the same, so I'm really going for something outside the box and unique. I suspect my original Galaxy hop IPA will end up being alright (made many mistakes as it was my first AG, but I learned a lot), and I intend to use that learning experience to produce a damn good 5 gallons of IPA.

I'm very open to feedback on everything as I'm a complete noob (this will be my 5th brew). Cheers!

So I brewed this today, and if there's one thing AG has taught me, it's that I'm still so incredibly new to brewing.

I mashed:
2-Row Pale 10Lb
Crystal 20L 1Lb
White Wheat 1Lb
Goldpils Vienna 1Lb
For 120 minutes at 154F (I had no other choice due to life getting literally in the middle of brewing but I looked it up and apparently the longer mash will lead to higher fermentability of the wort?)

That went well enough, but for reasons that baffle me, adding 185F sparge water brought the wort to 148F. I added a lot of sparge water until I was at 158F and at this point the cooler was pretty much full. Having no idea where to go from there I just let it settle for 10 mins then recirculated. Once I started to collect for 6.5 gallons of boil, I tasted the wort and realized it seemed extremely diluted. Lovely! :smack: I collected roughly 1/2 gallon and boiled the heck out of it for 30 mins to try and concentrate it (or see if that'd even work - I ended up adding it back to kickstart the full boil after 40 mins of boiling it). I remembered I had 6lbs of DME and decided to add 2 cups of it just before the wort began to boil. I tasted the wort again and it seemed much more normal. It's probably worth noting the gravity reading of the "diluted" original wort was 1.028, which to my understanding is extremely low. I also collected the wort for 75 minutes for whatever that's worth.

I did a 72 minute boil (I add random 2-3 minute additions to compensate for mistakes and running around because I always forget things - I added 10 mins on to a normal 60 min boil because I used a very light grain bill and wanted to reduce DMS possibilities in my hop stand. I'm sure my logic is flawed but i like to improvise )

Hops:
Warrior 0.5oz full boil
Galaxy 1oz 4 mins

Added 1tsp Irish Moss at 14 mins

Cut the heat and let it cool to 175F at which point I whirlpooled/hop standed for 15 mins:
1oz Motueka
1oz Calypso
1oz Citra
1oz Galaxy

I removed the hops (I used a 29x29 nylon bag to stir the hops in) and let the wort cool to 168F, added a little heat to try to maintain this, then added directly to the wort roughly 8 mins after the first hop stand:

0.5 oz Galaxy
0.5 oz Calaypso
0.5 oz Motueka
0.6 oz Citra (accidentally spilled a little too much into my measuring plate)

I whirlpooled that for 10 mins (the temp fluctuated between 165-176F throughout - I kept trying to dial in around 168 on the burner) then immediately began to chill the wort.

Once it hit 72 I brought the everything inside and let it sit at room temp for about 5 mins then siphoned (got an auto-siphon finally :rockin: ) into my fermenter. I got just above 4.5 gallons so I'm much happier with that than my last two brews (about 3 gallons with the intent of getting 5). The OG reading was 1.064 all said and done at room temp, and this was just before adding the yeast (Safale-05).

The pre-fermentation final product has a flavor that reminds me of warm, sweetened tea (with an aggressive hop-overtone of course). My last IPA attempt was just incredibly dense and aggressive at this point, so I'm curious how this will turn out ultimately.

I intend to dry hop the remaining 0.5oz of Citra, Calaypso, Galaxy and Motueka 10 days into primary (after racking to secondary) for 5 days. I'm debating on doing a second dry-hop of 1-2oz Galaxy for 4 days. I may end up just saving the extra 2oz of Galaxy for another purpose, so I'm curious what everyone thinks about doing the secondary dry-hop.

At this point I have no idea how this beer will turn out - it may either come out amazing or just be horrendous and awkward. My last IPA came out unbelievably bitter (though it is still quite young) and I expect that to mellow out within a few weeks. For this one I'm hoping for a present malt profile, but I really want the hops to be the stars of the show without having excessive bitterness overwhelming everything else. I want this beer to be extremely flavorful and aromatic, which is why I focused so heavily on the hop stand.

i think itll turn out fine. Nothing should be "extremely bitter; from the amount of hopos you listed in teh first recipe. Im just now dialing back my 60min addition from adding around 12oz in a hopstand. The bitterness you get from anything post-boil is minimal.

I woulod try mashing lower to increase fermentability and get a drier body for the hops. I mash my IPAs at 150. Extending the mash can get you more sugars, but this is mostly done at lower temps (like mid 140s). At 154, you could easily get away with a 30min mash and there wouldnt be much difference IMO

I added 0.5oz each of Citra, Motueka, Galaxy, and Calypso into the fermenter for dry hopping (it's day 6 - I plan to dry hop for 5-7 days). The yeast are still going crazy and there is a very large foam bubble layer at the top of the wort. I took a small sample to try and so far it's incredibly tasty but a little light on the mouthfeel. I intended it to be lighter and it's just a hair too light at the moment from what I was aiming for. As everything develops over the next few weeks, I expect it to resolve into something quite delicious. The color is also a beautiful amber, much nicer than my last IPA which resembles cider more than beer

I will be doing a second dry hop in about a week and am debating on what to do. I still have a lot of Galaxy left, 0.5oz Motueka, and 0.5oz Citra. That being said, I have 2oz of Wai-iti that I'm contemplating on adding in the dry hop. I was going to either use that or my Galaxy hops (perhaps both!) in a Belgian table beer within the next few months. I'm curious if adding it now in the dry-hop would even have any worthwhile impact on the beer. I'm curious to see how it can shine in conjunction with other hops, but I think it'd almost be a waste to add it now.

I definitely use up whatever youve got that is opened and not vaccuum sealed. Hops dont store very well once the nitrogen flushed package is opened

After 5 days dry-hopping I racked to secondary and am dry-hopping again with:

0.8oz Galaxy
0.3oz Motueka
(it's what I had left)
As well as 1oz of Wai-iti because it was about time I used it haha.

The beer is quite good looking, a very rich amber so far. The taste is quite good, slightly heavy on the bitter and I swear I can pick up on the DME addition I did. I did it mainly as a sugar and color boost, but I think it's having a subtle bittering effect on the overall malt flavor. I expect it to mellow once it's carbed and be quite delicious. I'm really happy abut the clarity since my last IPA was a murky mess. Waiting a week for this dry-hop will be very difficult, I think this is going to taste incredible! Not to mention the aroma is fantastic

For some reason this beer came out very bitter and very herbal. There are undertones of the flavors I was going for with the hops, but overall it's just very, very herbal, bitter, and purely "hoppy". It came out decent if I were to objectively try it. Wouldn't be my favorite beer by a mile but I wouldn't hate it. My brother actually compared it to Sierra Nevada's IPA, which I think is a compliment but not even vaguely what the recipe was intended to do. I think I may have done the hopstand incorrectly and pulled a lot of bitterness out. There's undertones of the flavors I was aiming to pull out, but overall it's just BOOM! Bitterness. I think it would've been stellar as a DIPA, but where it's at now it's just a hop nuke (not a good one). And I love hops I probably also overdid the amount of hops added and am pulling those numbers down in future recipes.

I'm switching to Conan yeast for my future IPAs, and hoping that play a good role. Safale 05 has actually been a huge disappointment to me. It provides basically nothing worthwhile. I actually just brewed and am fermenting a further modded version of this, where I stole the Pliney the Elder grain bill and the current Heady Topper clone hop ratios, and applied them (roughly, especially the hops) to Galaxy, Citra, Cascade, Motueka, and Mosaic hops. I thought I may have underpitched the Conan, which was deliberate, but it did take about 3 days to start going - now there's a monstrous krausen. I also did my starter 2/3 with Dark Malt Extract, and I really hope that doesn't mess up the flavor too badly. Hopefully this one comes out more closely to what I'm aiming for!