Help with first recipe / leftovers

[red1992v6rs]

I'm new to home brewing (extract only so far) with only a three one-gallon and one five-gallon brew under my belt. Im trying to use some of the following ingredients to come up with a decent five-gallon recipe for an APA. I have:

0.5# Crystal 10
0.5# Carapils
7 oz Plain Light DME
10 oz Plain Wheat DME
Wyeast American Ale II 1272

I'm thinking about the following recipe:

6# Plain Extra Light DME @ 60 minutes
0.5# Crystal 10 (steeped for 30 minutes)
0.5# Carapils (steeped for 30 minutes)

1 oz Nugget @ 60 minutes
1 oz Cascade @ 10 minutes
1 oz Citra @ 0 minutes

Wyeast American Ale II 1272


Now, for the typical beginner questions:

What do you think?
Should I add the plain DME or wheat DME?
Should I add other malts?
Anyone suggest a different hop selection or schedule?

If I decide to dry hop, when should I add them? I have only done 21 day primary fermentations rather than risk contamination going to secondary. I'm not really a hop head so I doubt I'll go this route, but I'm easy to persuade.

I'm very pessimistic, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Ryan

 

[JordanKnudson]

I actually think that recipe looks beautiful as it is. You could add the wheat dme, but it would be a small enough quantity that I don't know it would make a big difference in the finished beer, and you don't need help from the wheat with head retention, thanks to the carapils, so I'd only add it if you want to bump up the OG a little. Again, I think it looks great as it is.

The hop additions are fine. If you dry hop, you could use more Cascade or Citra. If you go with Citra for dry hop, the character from the Cascade boil addition will probably be lost, as Citra is very powerful stuff. As for when to add it, just wait until primary fermentation is over. This depends on your conditions, but if you typically do 21 day primary -- which is longer than you need -- you could just open the fermentor after about 2 weeks, drop in the hops, and close it back up for another few days to a week. As long as you use good sanitation practices and only crack open the fermentor for as long as you need to add the hops, you needn't worry about contamination or oxidation.

Good luck!

 

[red1992v6rs]

Thanks for the input. I didn't know that dry hopping the Citra would work against the Cascade profile. Makes sense though.