First Recipe - Analysis

Hello all, I'm a noob at the whole brewing thing (not at the drinking) and loving it so far. For my 4th extract recipe I thought I'd wing it and try my own and was curious to see what everyone's thoughts were.

I wanted to make a brew that had a definite emphasis on hops but balanced by some malty sweetness and hopefully a bit of caramel.

6.0 lbs LME
0.5 lbs Belgian Biscuit Malt
1.0 lbs Crystal 120L
4 oz. Willamette (whole) 4.3%
2 oz. Cascade (pellet) 7.5%
1.0 lbs Dark Brown Sugar
WLP001 Ale Yeast

Boil of brown sugar @ 155 for 20 mins, then biscuit & crystal for 30 mins. Then 60 min boil with additions:
50 mins - 1 oz. Cascade
40 mins - 0.2 oz. Cascade & 0.5 oz. Willamette
30 mins - 0.2 oz. Cascade & 1/3 oz. Willamette
20 mins - 0.2 oz. Cascade & 1/3 oz. Willamette
10 mins - 0.2 oz. Cascade & 0.5 oz. Willamette & Servomyces
5 mins - 0.2 oz. Cascade & 1/3 oz. Willamette & Whirlfloc
Dry hop - 2 oz. Willamette

Used the IC and pitched a 1L starter (my vial was warm when UPS delivered it) at 70F. It's in the primary right now ~65F.

I wouldve Cut the sugar to 0.5#

1# 120L is a lot of 120, but that could be tasty

adjust your hop schedule a bit for future brews....

50min, 40min, 30min - dont fully utilize IBU's
30min - too much flavor/aroma is boiled off

keep your hopping schedule to 60+min for bittering, 20min and less for flavor/aroma

also save yourself some $$ in the future and get US05, same yeast strain, easier to deal with

Thanks ryane, you pretty much re-affirmed what I was thinking after I finished and thought about everything a bit more. I had originally planned to do less brown sugar, but up'd it the day of brew.

I read a recommendation to do the 6 different additions because it would add some complexity to the hop character and liked the idea, but I did wonder if it would really be noticeable. Thanks for the advice on this one.

I chose the cal ale yeast because it was supposed to ferment out crisp and I wanted to try my hand at a liquid yeast.

Anyway, thanks a ton for the feedback. I'm excited to see how this one turns out and the next batch I think I'll go with your suggestions.

that hop schedule seems like a lot of work to me for very little to no return, also. the only way to do a schedule like that is with an auto-hopper

There's no reason to break up the hops like that. You'll end up with a lot of bittering and very little flavor/aroma from the hops.

Also #1 of 120 is way too much. It's going to make it very dark and very raisin/plume. Probably way more than you actually want. Same goes for the sugar; way too much for that volume of extract.