First recipe - American Pale Ale - comments please!

[HeuristicsInc]

When we were out my wife ordered a Victory Headwaters American Pale Ale. She really enjoyed it, which was surprising given how hoppy it was. We decided that was probably the flavor of the Citra hops. So I decided this was a good opportunity to try creating a recipe in BeerSmith, not to make a clone but to make an "inspired by" beer. So I did a little googling and looking at clone recipes.
Online sources indicated that the hops were Citra and Centennial, and malts were German. However, I'm doing extract, and I couldn't find much with German specialty grains that could be steeped... so this is what I came up with:

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: White Labs California Ale
Yeast Starter: yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.012
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60

Steep:
.5 oz Centennial - After Steep
8oz Biscuit Malt
8oz Crystal 30

Boil:
1lb Wheat Dry
5lb Light Dry - Add half of extract at flame out
.5oz Citra 60min
.5oz Centennial 15min
.5oz Citra 5min
1oz Citra 1min

1oz Citra Dry Hop 7 days

I was particularly unsure about the malt bill... any suggestions or comments?
Thanks!
-bill

 

[Yooper]

I wouldn't use FWH in the steep- that would make them mash hops but there isn't any mash. I would save those hops marked FWH and add them after the steep.

I don't like amber extract in the recipe- it's got crystal malt in it, but I don't know how much, so I'd use all light (or extra light) DME.

I'd use at least 1/2 of the extract at flame out.

 

[HeuristicsInc]

So move the FWH to the time when I take the grains out and start heating the water again?
And change the amber to light - should I change the wheat to light too?
-bill

PS I edited the recipe above a bit to your comments.
PPS I just noticed the extract boil time box ... updating that to have half and half, the IBUs went up to 42.6.
PPPS Thanks Yooper, I really enjoyed your Dead Guy clone. I'll have to make that again sometime.

 

[HeuristicsInc]

Any other comments? I'm planning to go to the LHBS this afternoon to pick up the ingredients.
Thanks in advance.
-bill

 

[Yooper]

Any other comments? I'm planning to go to the LHBS this afternoon to pick up the ingredients.
Thanks in advance.
-bill

The only other thing I can tweak is that I"d like to see the 15 minute hops addition a whole ounce, as I really like a nice hop flavor. Centennial can be floral/citrusy, and that would go nice with the citra, but some people like the .5 ounce addition like you have. Either way, it's going to be good!

 

[HeuristicsInc]

Hmm, I was trying not to overhop it since my wife isn't that big on big hoppy beers...
but at 15 minutes that's more of an aroma hop than a bittering hop, right?
-bill

 

[daksin]

Yes ,a 15m addition will not add too much bitterness, mostly flavor. You can enter it all into free software like hopville.com and adjust your bittering addition if you want to target a specific IBU level.

 

[HeuristicsInc]

I'm still hearing a few bubbles from time to time but the hydrometer's at 1.010. I'll check it again in a few days. Interesting flavor so far, be good if aging mellowed the hops out a bit.
-bill

 

[HeuristicsInc]

I've been meaning to post here for a little while. This beer turned out great! My wife and I agree that this is probably the best thing I've brewed so far.
I ended up sticking with the original recipe rather than increasing the hops, mostly because this way I used up the entire baggie of 1oz pellets
I ended up calling it "Abbiamo Vinto" (Italian for "we won" - it's a play on words for Victory, the brewery of the original inspirational beer, and it's a reference to the movie Life is Beautiful).
Here's a glass:

Kind of dark in the photo, it doesn't really look that dark in real life.
-bill