Looking at brewing a fairly hoppy, lower ABV Pale Ale as my first all-grain batch. Thinking of going with some like this: 7# Two-row Pale 1 1/4# American Munich 3/4# Crystal 60L 1/2# CaraPils 1/2# Crystal 10L .5oz Columbus @60 .5oz Centennial @10 1oz Amarillo @5 1.5oz Simcoe @Flameout DH with Citra and Cascade. Still kinda newer to brewing IPAs and Pales. Any critiques? Is that hop schedule too crazy?
Your hop schedule is a bit more "English" in style, as it focuses on bittering and aroma, but little on flavor. Several ways you could change that. You could move your Centennial addition back to, say 30 minutes. You could move your Amarillo back to about that same point and drop your Centennial to 5 minutes. Whatever you choose, you need to go somewhere about 20 to 30 minutes if you want more hop flavor. You'll get some out of the schedule you have here, but not as much as additions at those times would provide. More an issue, in my opinion, is your 17.5% crystal malts. That's a lot of crystal in a pale. I'm partial to no crystal at all in my pales, but that's me. Others may disagree, but I'd stick to somewhere between 5-10% of your total grain bill being crystal, so you don't end up with a sickly sweet mess. Replace it with more Munich if you want something maltier, and more pale if you just need to bring the OG back up to the 1.050 range. But, as always, this is your beer, not mine, so if you are set on adding that much crystal and sticking with that schedule, do it!
What's the batch size and what ABV are you shooting for? Depending on how low you want to go, make sure you adjust your mash temp and think about yeast choice so it isn't too dry. Hop schedule sounds tasty.
I agree with jokelahoma on the crystal, that will be awfully sweet. I am also not a fan of carapils for the sake of body. You can achieve the same with upping/lowering mash temperature. A higher mash temperature will create more long chain sugars that cannot be easily converted to alcohol by yeast, creating a bigger mouth feel. But that is the great thing about brewing: totally up to your preference. What is the actual weight of the hops you are going to use for dry hopping?
I generally agree with you on the crystal comment. But that being said, carapils is a bit different than the rest of the crystal malt the OP is using. It really only adds body, head retention, and more fullness to the beer (think dextrin). It does not really add 'sweetness' as most other crystal malts do.
I've found that once one gets over 5% or so, carapils becomes detectable. Perhaps I'm just sensitive to it. Above that level, I get an artificial, Aspartame-like flavor from it. Even without it, though, the OP's recipe is at 12.5% crystal. Since I'm a devout supporter of the school of thought that says "home brewers use too much crystal", that jumped out at me. Glad we agree on that. But then, as I said, he may have a reason he really wants that much crystal sweetness.
