I'm joining in on this thread late, but kudos to you for attempting a NEIPA as your first brew ever. As others have said, I would absolutely go for an APA or Smash with your favorite hops to hone your skills, though. I've been brewing for close to a decade now and literally just bottled my first NEIPA. I live down the street from Trillium and with that as a reference I know I'm going to be disappointed because I just can't match the quality, between oxygen ingress, potential process issues (yes they still occur after 50+ batches), etc.
If you really do want to continue do this style, go for it but here are some hints that I've learned over the years in producing many a mediocre beer, a few outstanding ones. The below ones are just a starting point into researching for NEIPAs and not all apply to other styles.
- For BIAB you can grind your grain a lot more to get better efficiency (it might have boosted that 1.060 up to the expected 1.066)
- Make sure you use a calculator (beersmith or the like) to figure out your heat loss by adding cool grains to hit you target mash temp
- Minimize oxygen in every step of the process (limit splashing mash when stirring, likewise when whirpooling hops post boil, do a slow steady stir, don't whip and froth it)
- First wort hop just to get a base bitterness, even if this is only .25 oz of Columbus or Chinook per 5 gallons. This is the difference a beer like Foundation Epiphany or Psuedo Sue has over the others, that slight layer of dank brings the whole thing together and if, like me, your hop flavor/aroma fades quickly, that bitterness will help extend the life of the beer instead of it falling flat very quickly
- Cool wort post whirlpool as fast as possible (look into chillers) and pitch that yeast immediately.
- I highly recommend a starter, and even more highly recommend a vitality starter which is what I do for all beers. Info can all be found within these forums.
- Add dry hops while fermentation is still active (I do it on day 2-3 for all my hoppy styles) because I like the flavor the bio-transformation gives, plus the active fermentation will help purge the O2 you introduced in the act of dry hopping
- In the same vein, don't constantly check gravity, every time you open the fermenter you release the CO2 blanket introduce oxygen
- Bottle as soon as fermentation is complete
- Perfect your bottling process. This is a killer for IPAs in my experience. I've had endless strings of bottling issues from siphon air leaks to clogs and everything else one could think of over the years. You'll figure out what problems one can possibly have the more you brew, because they will eventually happen to you. Just learn what works for you and your equipment best, but I'll recommend clamps, clamps, clamps. Don't let any of the air in, and if you can find a way to bottle straight out of your fermenter (research is needed if you want to go that route) even better.
At the end of the day, just brewing repeatedly will make you better and you'll produce better beers. Even better for your process, though would be going with a recipe where mistakes are hard to hide, but easy(ish) to diagnose. Brew a Maris Otter/Galaxy smash. If it doesn't turn out well, you're only out $25 instead of the $50 for NEIPA. And if something was off in your process you have limited places to tweak to diagnose where you need fix things. On the flip side, do not be discouraged if you attempt another NEIPA and it turns out worse than the first one you made. These things happen. I brewed a Hop Rod Rye clone which was about my 40th batch and had to dump it down the toilet. I don't know what or where it went wrong but it was straight up garbage. If that had been my 1st batch I might never have brewed again, and I worry that if you spend a decent chunk of change and time and effort to brew and don't like the results, you'll quickly become disenfranchised and quit the hobby.
One last recommendation, and this is coming from the perspective of a beer fan, use homebrewing to broaden your horizons of flavors you like or don't like. There are some people that like IPAs and will attempt to perfect a recipe. I do this with some recipes (I'm on a 6th iteration of my ginger saison that is damn near perfect in my mind), but the majority of the time I'll go from doing an APA to a wit to a dark strong to a porter. Variety is the spice of life my friend and experimenting on your own setup and figuring out what you can create is not only fun, but I think it will broaden you perspective on flavor combos and what works and doesn't. It's also kick ass to have a whole gamut of styles to pair with your mood, the season, or meal for the evening.
Ok, rambling over. Welcome to the hobby and good luck!