Please Critique My IPA Recipe

Up to this point I've pretty much copied recipes that looked interesting to me, with maybe a slight tweak here or there. I've had great luck using Deathbrewers partial mash technique, and I've decided that it's time I try to put together a recipe that I can more or less call my own. After some research here on HBT, here is what I've come up with for a partial mash IPA recipe, and I'd love some insight on how I could improve it.

6# Light LME
4# 2-Row Pils
.5# Vienna
.25# Cararoma
.25#Carafoam
.25# Crystal 30L
.25 Malted Rye

1 oz. Simcoe (60min)
1.5oz Cascade (15 min)
1.5oz Cascade (0 min)

White Labs WLP051 California V with a 2L starter

Est. OG=1.072
Est IBU=54

What I'm hoping to acheive is a slightly malty, nicely colored, smooth drinking IPA. I guess maybe it would be considered an English IPA. Any thoughts or help is very much appreciated. Thanks.

I'd boost the IBUs a little (I like my IBU/SG ratio to be about 0.9 to 1.2 in my IPAs, according to the Rager formula), and first wort hop some of the Cascade with a small portion of the Simcoe thrown in for complexity - this will achieve the smoothness you are looking for. I also like to dry-hop, but if you want more of the malt character to shine through, that may not be such a good idea.

I's mash somewhere around 151-152 and ferment starting at 65-66 degrees. Let it free-rise to 72 degrees as fermentation dies down to get good attenuation and an overall cleaner profile.

Thanks for the tips. I had thought about dry hopping when I racked to the secondary, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to really overload the brew with a low of hop aroma.

I hadn't even thought about using a FWH addition. I've never tried it, but everything I've read about it says it might be what I'm looking for. Would you recommend easing up on the 60min and 15min hop additions and doing the FWH, or leaving everything else the same and adding maybe .75oz Cascade, and .25 Simcoe for the FWH?

Thanks again for the help. This place is awesome!

You could just FWH the Simcoe. You'll get a smoother bitterness (from what I can tell) and some aroma (from what I can tell).

Then dry hop with .5 oz of that cascade.

So...

1 oz Simcoe FWH
1.5 oz Cascade 15 min
1 oz Cascade 0 min
.5 oz cascade DH

The dry hop will add back some fresh hop aroma you lose during the ferment.
But it's got plenty of hops in the late editions for a malty IPA.

It's an American IPA b/c of the American-style hops.

You're still coming in around 64 IBUs by my calculations. That's near the top of the scale for that style. You could save .25 of that simcoe for a nice addition to your dry hop.

Copied from John Palmer's How To Brew - I disagree about only-using low-alpha hops, but agree with the rest:

First Wort Hopping
An old yet recently rediscovered process (at least among homebrewers), first wort hopping (FWH) consists of adding a large portion of the finishing hops to the boil kettle as the wort is received from the lauter tun. As the boil tun fills with wort (which may take a half hour or longer), the hops steep in the hot wort and release their volatile oils and resins. The aromatic oils are normally insoluble and tend to evaporate to a large degree during the boil. By letting the hops steep in the wort prior to the boil, the oils have more time to oxidize to more soluble compounds and a greater percentage are retained during the boil.

Only low alpha finishing hops should be used for FWH, and the amount should be no less than 30% of the total amount of hops used in the boil. This FWH addition therefore should be taken from the hops intended for finishing additions. Because more hops are in the wort longer during the boil, the total bitterness of the beer in increased but not by a substantial amount due to being low in alpha acid. In fact, one study among professional brewers determined that the use of FWH resulted in a more refined hop aroma, a more uniform bitterness (i.e. no harsh tones), and a more harmonious beer overall compared to an identical beer produced without FWH.