Brewing an Amber Ale today

Here is my recipe:

Volume: 3.5 gal
Partial Mash

Grain:
3lbs. 6-row Base
1 lb. Biscuit
1 lb. Crystal 80
1 lb. Malted Rye
Single infusion mash at 155F (1.2 qts/lb)
Maybe a 1/4tsp of Baking Soda to get the pH a little higher.

Extract:
2 lbs. Light DME

Boil Hops:
Cenntenial (10.1% AA)
0.5 oz for 60 min
0.25 oz for 30 min
0.25 oz for 10 min

Dry Hops:
Willamette (4.8% AA)
1 oz in Secondary for 2 weeks

Yeast:
Wyeast American Ale 1056

Target Results
OG: 1.063
IBUs: 35
SRM: 17L
ABV: 6.5%

Comments? Suggestions? Words of encouragement?

Just my opinion:

Don't use Willamette for dry hopping. It'll give you way too much herbal aroma. Unless you're into drinking something that hits you in the face with garden dirt/plants, don't do it. Use 0.25-0.5 Cent instead, and bitter with Willamette.

This much rye will make your beer thicker than usual. It's not a bad thing though. Keep it if you like.

I'd use less Caramel 80. Not because of color, but because it'll give you a strong aroma and flavor. Maybe 0.5?

I'm also a bit lost on why you'd want to get your pH higher, when mashing should be in acidic conditions (around 5.2), which is lower pH.

Damn. Too late on the grain bill. Already bought and milled together.

Dry hopping with 10% AA won't be too overpowering?

The water report I've seen for NYC shows very soft water with almost no mineral content, which can yield a mash pH below 5.2. I've read that for a beer in the 15-20 SRM range, you actually want something slightly higher, around 5.9. I'm literally adding less than a 1/4 tsp just as insurance against something too low.

Oh well, if it doesn't come out, I'll just have to make some more.

I dry hopped with an 18.2% Summit, and it was amazing. Just use 0.25-0.5 oz to not overdo it with the aroma. It's just that Willamette's aroma is too herbal for my taste to be used like that. Centennial will give you more of a strong American aroma. Or you may choose to just skip the dry hopping altogether. If you bitter with Will, you may not even be able to perceive the difference in bitterness, besides that it won't be as bitter.

I think you're getting it wrong. Soft water with no mineral content will be closer to neutral rather than acidic, unless I'm really missing something. When in doubt, use litmus paper to check

You convinced me. I switched it up to the full 1 oz of Willamette for 60 min. Then I'm going to do .25 oz of Centennial at 30 and 10 min, leaving me an even .5 oz to dry hop with.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll have to go re-read my John Palmer to see if I'm mis-interpreting something about the mash pH. He's my source on lower for lighter and higher for darker.

2 weeks might be a little long to dry hop. Try it after a week, then 10 days, etc.,

When you stop seeing an increase in flavor, or you start getting any significant grassiness, you should get off the dry hops. You want the floral and fruity character from the dry hops, not extensive vegetal notes, which you will get with a long enough dry hop.

Any report on the progress of the brew? How is it?

I moved into secondary and started the dry hopping about 10 days ago. Going into the bottles today. I sampled a bit when I racked to secondary, and it had already fermented down to about 1.010. It definitely had a bit of a raisin flavor to it, probably attributable to the high level of dark crystal malt I used.

I haven't been able to check up on it since racking, but I'll get another sip when I bottle later today to see how the dry hopping has gone.

So, got a little sidetracked yesterday. Finally got around to bottling this evening.

I didn't pull my sample until after I primed, so I still don't know how the final product will turn out. But the raisin note seems to be much subdued now. You were right about the thickness from all the rye, but it lends a nice spice note to ballance the heavy caramel from the crystal. I primed with a little more DME than I usually do to get a good hard carbonation, which I'm hoping will lighten the mouth feel some. Good hop flavor and bitterness (thanks for the advice there). Aroma is a little lighter than I'd thought/hoped, especially from a 10% AA dry hop. That might show up a little more with carbonation to lift it out of the glass, though?

It came out VERY cloudy with lots of sediment. Maybe a sloppy job of racking from secondary to the bottling bucket, so I'm sure a lot of that will settle out during conditioning.

I'll keep it in my SOFC this week around 75F, and I'm gonna crack one Friday night. Hopefully should be all carbed up by then.