Planning an IPA which hops go well together?

[HopZine Rob]

I've recently brewed an rather sucsesful IPA that used Warrior, Chinook, Columbus, Cascade, Centennial and Citra.

Now I'm planning my next. The hops I have in at the moment are Simcoe, Summit, Nelson Sauvin, NZ Pacifica

[yogester]

Simcoe for bittering and Summit at 10, steep + dry works well . Let it mature though to let the Summit evolve into fruitiness. Can (sometimes) taste cat pee/garlic when young. Perhaps 6-7% alc and condition for 6 weeks after racking to corny/bottling.... typing this makes me want to brew another one up myself!

[HopZine Rob]

Just done a stock-check of my hops and found I had cascade and Amarillo too.

This IPA should come it at 7-7.4% abv Maris Otter, Munich (Weyermanns) and Caramalt...maybe a touch of crystal for a bit of colour and sweetness?

So I'm considering

Simcoe 40g - 60 mins
Columbus 20g - 30 mins
Cascade 20g - 10 mins
Cascade 30g - 0 mins
Amarillo 50g - 0 mins

Dry Hopped with:
Amarillo 30g (pellets)
Cascade 30g (pellets)

Never used pellets before and interested in what differnce it'll make.

[yogester]

In my experience 30 min hop additions are a waste of time. you won't get any aroma complexity compared with a 60 min one. Also do first wort hopping - I have seen that it works especially compared with a 60 min addition - there seems to be more "hop presence" if you will. Either go Simcoe/Columbus FWH or skip Columbus. My best IPA's have always had erred on less varieties of hops as opposed to more.

Malt bill I would just go 85% Pale, 10% Munich, 5% CaraMalt/CaraGold/CaraPils - that is my fav malt bill for a biggish IPA. Plenty of malt complexity there without any extra Crystal (of which I have never been a fan of...). For a pale, drier version 97% Pale, 3% CaraMalt has been a nice way to accentuate the fruitiness of the West Coast hops in my experience. I had a cheeky sample of my Polish Sybilla hopped IPA which was 96% MO and 4% CaraGold and it definitely allows the earthy Sybilla hops to shine.

If you are using pellets as a dry hop don't bother with a bag - just toss them in, wait 4+ days, (optional step now is to add finings gelatin/kieselsol has worked well for me), crash cool to 5ºC, and syphon carefully to cornie/keg/bottling bin.