Honey IIPA extract recipe: CRITIQUE PLEASE!

Planning on brewing a 5gal batch of a honey IIPA on the lower end of the ABV for style. Seeking a slight honey flavor aroma and dry finish. Love summit hops per Mikkellars single hop beer, love cascade and the Willamette forest hence the hop schedule. Love floral and citrus with a bit of earth. please advise. if can. using WLP001 and making 1 liter starter.


Honey Bunny Summit IIPA: Extract: 5 gal

Steeped grains:
0.5lb Honey malt
0.5lb Caramel 60

Fermentables:
3lbs LME at 60 min
3.5 lbs LME at 20 min from end
1 lb Dry Malt Extract at end of boil
1 lb honey at flameout

Hops: using whole flower, unbagged except for dry hop (bagged pellet)
1 oz Summit (60)
1 oz Willamette (60)
1 oz Cascade (15 min from end)
1 oz Willamette (10 min from end)
2 oz Cascade (dry hop)

Per BeerAlchemy: IBU 95, OG 1.071 FG 1.013

Looks decent enough. Doubt you'll hit 1.013 though.

Maybe cut the C60 to let more of those honey notes shine through instead of toasty caramel. Double up on the actual honey and add it after the wort has cooled down slightly. Finally, get rid of the 60 minute Willamette addition... shift it to flameout instead. Or you can divvy up the Summit/Willamette at both slots. A 30 minute addition can provide smoother bitterness than a whole 2 oz. at 60 minutes, if you want to experiment with that.

To make things a bit easier, I would bag the whole hops in the boil and forget the bag for the pellet hops in the dryhop. The pellets will sink. Then, you can carefully rack the beer with your racking cane wrapped with a mesh bag to avoid sucking up the trub.

Thanks for the input! I was planning to strain the boiled hops hoping for better utilization. I do a 3 gallon boil, hence the late additions of LME and have a great strainer. Do you think bagging the hops lower the utiliztion perceptibly? I was also thinking of upping the fermentables and think double honey is the a great option.
Love the idea of Willamette at flameout and the 30 Minute addition. Also, not bagging the pellet at dry hop. that was a brain fart. i never bag the dry hop. cant imagine trying to pull a big sack out of a carboy neck. I have a little leftover WIllamette and Summit (.5oz each) so thinking of that at 30

1 oz Summit (60)
.5 oz Willamette (30)
.5 oz Summit (30)
1 oz Cascade (15 min from end)
1 oz Willamette (10 min from end)
1 oz Willamette (flameout)
2 oz Cascade (dry hop)

Boiling hops in a 5 gallon nylon mesh paint strainer bag should have no impact on hop utilization as opposed to tossing them in loose.

I just had the first taste of this and love it. OG of 1.069 FG 1.011 with 2lbs of honey. If I brew it again I might go with 3lbs of honey but 2lbs is not a bad choice. Thanks for posting the recipe it will be put on my brew again list.

just a side note to this recipe...i intended to add 2 lbs of honey after primary fermentation just to give the yeast a chance to munch on all the extract before gorging the yeast. then i forgot! so i dry hopped 2 weeks later, and added the 2 lbs of honey boiled in a bit of water. 6 days later i racked off the hops and checked gravity. 1.004. way lower than expected, but i need to check hydrometer. bottled with 4oz honey for 5 gallon batch. beer had a slight floral note, dry, balanced bitterness. delicious. will brew again.
primary: 14 days
secondary: 6 days
bottle condition: 4 weeks

just opened one of these after storing it at room temp (74) for about 5 months. it was one of my first brews. initially it was a bit too sweet, but it has dried out over time and all hop aroma is gone. its more like an english bitter... if you brew the original recipe, i suggest putting a few aside. its one of the few ipas that improved over time..initially it was too sweet.
per the summit hops, i never got any onion aroma with these!

but if you are interested in brewing something like this, up the bitterring and dry hopping a bit and cut the crystal in half. increasing the honey wouldnt hurt either to dry it out further.