Brewing my first recipe this weekend--feedback please

[feralpigeon]

Hi all,

This weekend I'm planning on brewing my first batch using a recipe that I put together on my own. Was hoping that you all could look over it and let me know what you think: Any major holes? Anything adjustments that you think would help? Thanks in advance!

Making a 2.5 gal batch, full boil starting with 3 gal.

Style: American IPA

Specialty grains:
.5 lb Crystal 40L
.25 lb Carapils

Steep @ 155-65* for 30 min

3 lb Amber DME
.5 lb Light DM
.25 lb Corn Sugar

.5 oz Columbus-60 min
.25 oz Cascade-10 min
.25 oz Cascade-5 min

Plan to pitch with a pack of Danstar West Coast Ale yeast.

OG should be ~1.066

Thoughts? I was thinking of adding more hops, but Beersmith says this will be ~64 IBU, though I hear you lose some hoppyness doing a full vs. partial boil.

 

[Jimbodaman]

When I brewed smaller batches on my stove, which I assume you are I had a greater boil off than .5 gal per hour, but my gas stove is 16,000 btu's which is pretty big for a normal stove. Otherwise I say go for it, it will likely make tasty beer.

 

[Jimbodaman]

I think my boil off was more in the range of .75 gal/hr.

 

[feralpigeon]

I know that a .5 gal boil off is on the very low end, but that seems to be my standard after a couple runs. Still, planning on having some extra water ready to go in case I come up short and need to top off. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Yooper]

Amber DME has crystal malt in it, as well as other things (Munich malt?) so I'd swap that out for light or extra light DME.

I'd increase the late hops to .5 ounces at least (.25 ounce is very low for an IPA), and dryhop with the leftover .5 ounce of hops.

I like the amount of crystal/carapils and DME.

 

[feralpigeon]

Thanks for the tip on amber—didn't know it had crystal. Couple follow ups:
1. Anywhere I can find a breakdown of what's in the extracts I'm using. Not much to go from on the packaging and the local brew shop isn't that great.
2.. I'd like to dryhop but don't have a secondary and I'm using a 5gal primary so I'm concerned that it'll lead to oxidation with so much headspace on a small batch. Any ideas of a work around? Possibly just add a bunch of hops (like an oz) at flame out?