DIPA Recipe Feedback

I love American Ale II for DIPAs, great choice. Personally I would include more late hop additions, save the Cascade and Centennial for flavor/aroma. What OG are you shooting for?

Maybe something like this:
90 min - 2 oz. Magnum
30 min - 1 oz. Centennial
10 min - 1 oz. Centennial
0 min - 1oz Centennial, 1oz Cascade
Dry hop 6 days - 1 oz. Cascade, 1 oz. Centennial, 1oz Columbus

 

I'm not much of a DIPA guy, but..
- What OG did you compute? Looks huge (without doing the math and assuming 5 gallons).
- That grain bill looks really chewy. DIPAs should generally attenuate a bit more than say, an IPA, to avoid being cloying. Consider cutting some of the crystal (either the carahell or the C20). I don't think I would ever add carapils/carahell to a beer this big. Many substitute some simple sugar into a DIPA (replacing some of the base malt) to make sure it's well attenuated.

 

Heck, with the addition of amber extract and the liklihood of carapils in the pale I'd leave the crystals well enough alone, otherwise he's just making a really hoppy barleywine. IMHO of course and YMMV

I'd personally get rid of the crystal and add some table sugar to attenaute it to 1.010 to 1.015

 

I would replace the amber extract with more light extract. I have a hard time imagining this beer having a watery mouthfeel.

Also, are you planning on doing a mini mash? I think that Carahells will need to be mashed.

 

Carahell is a crystal malt, and can be steeped.

 

drop your cascade, centennial down to 10 and 5 min boiling for 60 min is pointless, the magnum will give you plently of bitterness that you will need. You need more dry hop I would do atleast 4 oz @ 14 days! As is now you will have a very bitter beer with some sweetness, but not a lot of hop aroma.

 

Not enough hops overall for a DIPA. I would increase the late flavor, aroma, and dry hop additions.

 

The issue with Amber extract or heavily kilned cara malts is that these flavors can weigh down the mouthfeel in conjunction with the high amount of hops. It can leave a sticky mouthfeel or an oversweet pineapplyness. In my opinion, when making an IPA or DIPA, the goal is to provide the hops with a clean malt profile which will lend well to juicy bittering hops and not conflict or weigh them down. That conjecture is a la Vinnie Cilurzo...

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=vinnie+cilurzo+ipa&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

click the first link and download the PDF. It's Vinnie's "How to Brew a DIPA" or something like that.

 

I did a much lighter Ipa with the following additions and it turned out really good but kicks you in the face. It would be better in a bigger beer like you are doing.

1oz Chinook 60 Min
1.5 oz mix of Chinook, Cascade and Centennial at 20 Min, 10 Min, 5 Min and Dry Hop 1 week.

You might want to consider upping the recipe to 5.5 - 6 gallons. Good chance of losing some beer during the steps if you are using pellet hops.