Advice on hops for Belgian Strong/cru

[massappeal120]

Ok so i originally set out to make my version or a nice strong belgian cru. this is the recipe i devised:

Steeping grains: (45 min)

1/2 lb pail crystal malt
1 1/2 lb Cara Vienne

Extract BOil wort60min)
6 lb LME
1 lb dry lme
2 lb dark lme
2lb candi sugar

hops/flavoring:

2 oz of chinook bittering
1 oz bitter orange peel w/bettering
1/2 oz sweet orange peel with aroma
1 oz corriander w/aroma
1 oz hallertau aroma.

fermented with whitelabs abbey ale yeast

Unfortunately this wont have the depth of color and maltiness usually found in Cru's due to the fact that there was no dark lme available at my homebrew supply store so i just opted to add 2lb of light dry malt to keep my alc up and make it nice and strong.


So here are some questions:

1 how does the recipe sound
2 is this much chinook at 12% alpha too hoppy for a belgian? I know they arent huge hop bears but i gotta balance my sweet with some bitter to drink it. I am leanign more to just 1 maybe 1.5 oz of chinook. the hallertau definately stays. Ever since i tried a buddies kolsch with this aroma i have been dying to use it. The chinook was just my american spin on a euro classic.
3 is this much light lme gonna work... will it be too sweet too alcoholic?
4 how long should i condition it. I am prepared to wait 8 weeks in the bottle, before i bust it out. I sure hope that is enough time.

Let me know what yall think and and all input will be very appreciated

 

[massappeal120]

oh i forgot i got a 1/2 lb of dry amber i will probably throw in their do deepen it up a lil

 

[massappeal120]

that is supposed to be dark malt extract not dark lme typo sorry.

 

[Poindexter]

I would suggest backing off your bittering hops by aproximately one metric ton.

Have you tried a Grand Cru? AleSmith's (San Diego) is darn good, don't know if it is authentic.

Did you find this recipe somewhere? I would think something more like 10-15 HBUs _total_ would be more appropriate, maybe even fewer.

M2c,
P