Critique my BIAB method/recipe (new-ish brewer)

[Wyobrew22]

Hello all. I've been a member here for some time but have been away from the hobby for quite a while. I used to extract brew a good bit and partial mash sometimes but I have some time to spare lately and purchased a few things to begin some BIAB brewing. I approach this with maybe a bit of a different perspective than some as I'm a professional chef and I like to experiment. I brewed my first batch the other day. It's what I hope will be a fairly typical IPA with hops I particularly like and one I haven't worked with. I'm mostly looking for recipe advice or experience based pointers that can help me designing future recipes and having a more enjoyable brew day. Here is a link to the recipe I brewed on brewer's friend (helpful site, really like it) https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/546797/mamba-s-west-coast-i-p-a
I did no water adjustment as I have particularly clean water where I live and am interested in what it will bring to the beer itself. I did a bit of research on BIAB specific techniques and used a pretty thin mash. Hit all of the numbers pretty dead on getting 77% efficiency. I mashed in a big cooler using my immersion circulator (favorite kitchen tool) for precise temperature control. I realize the hop amounts may be a bit low for some of you and the schedule is more basic than many use but I'm just trying to get back off the ground here. I have never used Apollo hops before and decided to try dry hopping with them. The beer has been in the fermenter for 5 days. Big activity very quickly, fermented these 5 days right at 62 degrees and I just took it out of my insulating brew kettle to gradually raise the temp to an ambient 68 degrees and plan on dry hopping after another week or so. beer will be kegged and I'm not planning on fining as of now. Anxious to hear any advice or tips anyone wants to give me.....eager to learn!

 

[owmatooth]

looks like a solid IPA with a simple grain bill. should be a tasty beerverage. keep it up. only thought i have is to use your boil kettle as a mash tun, eliminates cleaning the cooler. every little step to make it easier on brew day. give up a little in insulation, gain a little in simplicity. trade offs to be considered.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Not many use secondarys anymore
Dry hopping has dropped to 3 or 4 days for lots of people with great success
Alot of people Dry hopping at the end of fermentation while its still active. ( haven't done it myself yet) Now in your case.

 

[Wyobrew22]

Thanks. I was actually worried that the circulator might not have enough power to keep 8 gallons at mash temp in a big metal kettle and that could maybe maximize any unwanted caramelization happening on the heating element? I may give it a try.....also I would have to devise a way to get the element down into the kettle as it’s too tall for the heater to reach the liquor level at that amount (15 gallon kettle I think). I will be dry hopping during the tail end of fermentation. Still seeing some regular activity but the beer is clearing some now at about 8 Days. I was thinking of doing an ounce of the Apollo at 10 days and another ounce at 12 days then racking to keg at 15 days. Both will be in a hop straining bag. Or should I do both ounces at once?