Nelson Sauvin White Oak IPA

I am attempting to knock out a beer on Labor Day this year cause it seems that the only time I have to brew is on holidays that I don't actually work.  I have been wanting to use Nelson Souvin hops for a while, but they are extremely hard to find and only available during certain times of the year.   The hops comes from New Zealand and is apparently very rare to find.  This hop imparts a nice white wine fruitiness and fresh crushed Gooseberries (whatever that is).  I wanted to use my "standard" IPA recipe which for the last few batches I have done really came out great, especially on my last one.  This time I wanted to not use Rye, but bump the base malt up a bit and add a bit more Munich.  This is rounded out with Crystal 10 and 40 and Flaked Wheat for some body and head retention.

Now what will make this beer different is the fact I am adding in Chardonnay soaked Oak Cubes in secondary along with more Nelson Souvin hops for Dry Hopping.  I don't really want to add too much oak or too much wine flavors into the beer, I just want it to be subtle and basically enhance the wine characteristics of the hops I am using.  I am adding in extra hops because I know it will sit for a time on the oak cubes and I don't want to loose too much hop bitterness and flavor because of that.  So IBU's might seem a bit high for the ABV, but I think in the end things will be balanced out.  I am really looking forward to this one.

Nelson Sauvin White Oak IPA


Malt:
13 lbs: Rhar 2-Row
2 lbs: Briess Munich 10L
.5 lbs: Briess Crystal 10L
.5 lbs: Briess Crystal 40L
.5 lbs: Flaked Wheat

Hops:
.25 oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA FWH
.25 oz Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ 90 min
.25 oz Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ 60 min
.25 oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ 35 min
.50 oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ 25 min
2 oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ 10 min
3 oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ Flame out
4+ oz: Nelson Souvin 11.5AA @ Dry Hop

Misc:
1: Whirlfloc Tablett
3 oz: Chardonnay Soaked Oak Cubes - 2 Weeks

Target OG: 1.068
Target FG: 1.012
IBU: ~ 73

Actual OG: 1.063
Actual FG: 1.010
Apparent Attenuation: 83.4%

ABV: 7.1
ABW: 5.5

Yeast:
Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

Hopville Recipe

Update 9.29.2011: Added in 3oz of Chardonnay soaked oak cubes.  Gravity down to 1.010 and fermentation has halted.
Update 10.5.2011: Added in 4 oz of Nelson Souvin Dry Hops.
Update 10.10.2011: Started to chill beer in prep to keg
Update 10.15.2011: Racked beer into keg.  Set 11psi @ 43degF for a 2.1 co2 level.  Also thinking of adding in more dry hops.