First original recipe

I brewed this Sunday. I need advice on times for primary and secondary.

6 lbs light DME (pilsen)
.75 lb Crystal 60 (Caramel Briess)
.50 lb Castle Biscuit
8 oz honey
Nottingham yeast (rehydrated)
2 oz Kent Golding pellets AA 5.6
1 oz Northern Brewer pellets AA 8.6

Steep grains at 150 -158 F 30min.
3lbs DME 60 min.
Half ounce Northern and K. Golding 60 min.
Half tsp gypsum 45 min.
3lbs DME 30 min.
.25 oz of Northern and K. Golding 30min.
Whirfloc tab and .25 oz K. Golding 15 min
Honey 5 minutes
1 oz K. Golding flameout

Primary ales for at least 21 days for best taste. You don't need to secondary unless you are dry-hopping. What style are you going for here? Looks like an IPA.

An English ESB/strong or similar, minus the really earthy hops. Took out fuggles and added Northern Brewer to give it a bit more umph and less earthy tones. Wanted a cleaner finish so went with Nottingham. Wanted the IBU's around 35. More malt dominant.

Jayhem said:

Primary ales for at least 21 days for best taste. You don't need to secondary unless you are dry-hopping. What style are you going for here? Looks like an IPA.

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You can actually dry hop in primary. I do it all the time. Just throw your hops in a paint strainer bag, tie it to non flavored/no wax dental floss (so you can pull it back out) and toss it in. The nylon floss and bag won't affect the flavor of the beer.

BrewU said:

An English ESB/strong or similar, minus the really earthy hops. Took out fuggles and added Northern Brewer to give it a bit more umph and less earthy tones. Wanted a cleaner finish so went with Nottingham. Wanted the IBU's around 35. More malt dominant.

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My only suggestion would be to do away with some of the honey and maybe replace it with more malt. The reason is with extract brewing, you have no control over mash temps which affect the mouth feel and amount of residual sugar to give it a fuller body. If the maltster mashed at a lower temp, adding honey, sugar or any other fully fermentable sugar, may result in a thin beer. If that's what you want, than it's ok.

If you really want to keep the honey, there is a trick that some people do where you keep the wort (not ambient) temp low (62-64) during fermentation and under pitch. This will keep the unwanted esters in check but the beer won't finish out like at 1.008. It does work but depending on the beer can be cloying at times.

I just got a wild hair and through that 8 ounces of honey in at the end. So would you just add a half pound more of the DME? After reading a lot of opinions on this site I picked the Nottingham yeast because I thought it might take the gravity down further and finish cleaner if it is fermented at a low temperature. At least that's what I was told