Help with a Deadlift IIPA clone

I'm looking to try to clone the Widmer Deadlift IIPA.

I can get the following off of their website
bitterness 70 IBU
alcohol by volume 8.6%
original gravity 21.0° PLATO = 1.088 (according to Beersmith)
malts 2-Row PALE, CARAPILS, CARAMEL 10-L
hops
BITTERING: ALCHEMY
AROMA: NELSON SAUVIN, CASCADE, WILLAMETTE
DRY HOPPED: NELSON SAUVIN, CASCADE, WILLAMETTE

Playing in Beersmith, I have come up with the following. I'd appreciate any feedback. I'm having trouble finding Millenium hops, so I may substitute some Nugget.


Recipe: Deadlift Imperial IPA Clone
Brewer: Spot On! Brewing
Asst Brewer:
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 5.72 gal
Estimated OG: 1.088 SG
Estimated Color: 6.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 71.8 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
14.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 85.76 %
1.33 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.12 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 6.13 %

0.50 oz Millenium [15.50 %] (60 min) Hops 20.9 IBU
0.50 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (60 min) Hops 20.3 IBU
0.25 oz Horizon [12.00 %] (60 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (10 min) Hops 5.4 IBU
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] (10 min) Hops 11.8 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (10 min) Hops 5.4 IBU
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)

Total Grain Weight: 16.33 lb

I'd back off on the cara/crystal malt, a big beer will have plenty of sweetness without a lot of added unfermentables. I'd say ~.75 lbs of carapils and .25 lbs of C10 should do it.

Your dry hopping looks great, but I’d tack on an extra few ounces of hops right at the end of the boil (or even 1-2 minutes into chilling). You could also just move the 10 min hops to 0, if you didn’t want to add more hops. Hopefully you have a source for Nelsons, they’re great but often hard to buy.

Otherwise looks solid. Just make sure to pitch plenty of yeast and do your best to keep oxygen out of the beer after the start of fermentation. Good luck.

Thank you for the feedback. I'll drop the unfermentables in beersmith and see what I need to do to the 2 row to compensate. The brewer for Russian River does say that those be less than 5% of the grainbill, so I do need to make that change. I don't have much experience yet in the drop hop arena, so I'm not sure if I should do a 14 day and a 7 day. I an thinking about adding some hops at 20 minutes for the flavor side of things of too. I won't be brewing this for another 2 weeks so I do have some time to tweak things yet.

Well, I did get around to brewing this back at the end of October, and am finally drinking it.

I tweaked the recipe a bit from my original post

Recipe: Deadlift Imperial IPA Clone
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.0 gal
Estimated OG: 1.089 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.021 SG
Estimated Color: 6.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 70.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.88 %

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
16.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 91.43 %
.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4.29 %
.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 4.29 %

0.25 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 7.9 IBU
0.25 oz Warrior [15.80 %] (60 min) Hops 10.6 IBU
0.50 oz Horizon [12.00 %] (60 min) Hops 16.2 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.90 %] (20 min) Hops 9.6 IBU
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.40 %] (20 min) Hops 20.2 IBU
0.75 oz Willamette [4.50 %] (20 min) Hops 5.5 IBU
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056)

Total Grain Weight: 17.50 lb

This ended up being a bit troublesome. I ordered my supplies from a different place than I normally use. When I got the grain I thought it looked like a more coarse crush than I was used to getting. Since I had only been getting grain from one supplier, I decided to just use it. Big mistake, my efficiency came in at a poor 56%. I was ticked to say the least. I ended up doing a 120 min boil just to get the O.G. in the ballpark, which ended up at 1.077. My final gravity came in @ 1.014

2 weeks after brew day I dry hopped it.
3 weeks after brewing we went to transfer it a keg. There was so much hop pellet material in suspension that we ended up racking it to a secondary and cold crashing it instead.
Fast forward through the holidays, and we end up kegging it on Dec 4th. The sample I tasted then was disappointing. The Nelson filled the aroma, but the cascade was way overpowering on the taste. It was super grape fruity. I was worried.

Now that it is carbonated though, I am pleased! The flavor is real close to the real thing. My bottle I was saving for comparison is getting old and the hops are fading, so I don't have a good 'real' deadlift to compare to right now. My friends who tried it said they thought it was right on the money too.

The color is about perfect. The real deadlift has a slightly darker head then mine. The bitterness is subtle but there. The sweetness of the malt carries through like the real thing. The aroma is Nelson. I might trim back the dry hop portion of the Nelson by 1/4 oz next time. The flavor is great, the Nelson carries through very well.

I am pleased with it now. Of course when I brew it again, I should get a better OG, which will change things a bit. I consider it a success at this point!

Glad to hear it turned out well!

Getting a good efficiency on a big IPA can be tough will all the hops sucking up wort. I did one yesterday and got ~50% efficiency (closer to 70% if you could the second runnings beer). I strain my wort before pitching to get as much of the hop gunk out as I can, and I used bagged whole hops for dry hopping to make them easier to deal with.