Homegrown Cascade Recipe, need help

Ingredients
1

I’m still a novice at recipes. I generally prefer Belgian beers, but I wanted to brew with my homegrown cascade hops. I have 3 oz from this year’s harvest.

I appreciate the advice given in this thread:  (no need to follow this link) https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=27371.0 to not do my previous plan.

Regardless, I just wanted to get a second opinion before I placed an order.

6 lbs Pilsen Malt (syrup)
0.5 lbs Briess Caramel 60

0.5 oz Chinook (60 min)
0.5 oz Chinook (20 min)
3 oz Homegrown Cascade (0 min) -dried, and vacuum sealed in the freezer

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

5 oz Corn Sugar (priming) (yes, I bottle)

Any thoughts?

2

Looks good. Have you bittered with chinook before? It’s pretty assertive. I like it, just mentioning it.

Plan for a large amount of wort loss to the cascades.

3

Yes, I have, but for a subtler approach, do you have a different recommendation? Cascade pellets?

4

If you’re looking for a balanced bitterer (not too smooth, not too harsh) for American ales, CTZ (Columbus, Tomahawk, or Zeus) is great. Likewise Nugget, Bravo, and Warrior are all good choices. If you want something super-smooth, Apollo, Magnum, Summit, and Simcoe are all very smooth bitterers, in my experience.

If it was my beer, I would do something like:

.5 oz CTZ 60 min
1 oz cascade/centennial/amarillo 10 min
3 oz homegrown cascade 0 min

5

I would go ahead and brew the recipe as is, but only use 4 oz priming sugar instead of 5 oz.  Insurance against possible gushers.

6

The recipe you posted is fine but I would not shy away from using cascade in a Belgian beer if that is your preference. You could easily brew that as a Belgian pale ale although I pick up a different hop than chinook to use for bittering and flavor. Aramis and Aurora both work really well with cascade in these types of beers.