India Pale Lager Brew Day

I've read several articles lately about India Pale Lagers both online and in Brew Your Own magazine and figured that since I love IPA's, an IPL would be a good first shot at brewing a lager beer.  The temperature in my basement sits steadily at 56 degrees this time of year so fermenting at 48 degrees and lagering at 32 degrees shouldn't stress my upright freezer fermentation chamber nearly as much as it would in the summer when the basement is at least 10-15  degrees warmer.  I opted for a grain bill that is essentially the same as a lower ABV IPA and fermented with 1 Wyeast 2035 American Lager yeast smack pack built up in a 1 liter starter that sat on my DIY stir plate for 24 hours.  The IPL was brewed on Saturday, 2/21/15 and the grain bill as follows:

9lbs American 2-Row Pale Malt
1lb American White Wheat 
1lb Crystal/ Caramel 30L
1lb American Munich Light 10L

The hops used were Cascade and Centennial with a hopping schedule of:

1oz Centennial at 60 minutes (after the hot break has fallen completely)
1oz Centennial at 15 minutes left in the boil
1oz Centennial at Flameout and whirlpooled for roughly 20 minutes
2oz Cascade - Dry Hop for 2 Days
2oz Cascade - Dry Hop for 2 Days after the first Cascade dry hop

I mashed in with 6 gallons of strike water and held the mash temp at 151 degrees for an hour.  I collected roughly 3.80-3.90 gallons of 1.065 wort at mash out.  Given how much liquid I left behind in the mans tun, I realized that I needed to build a new manifold more to the specs laid out by John Palmer in How to Brew. I performed an batch sparge with 175 degree water for 15 minutes then drained the second runnings into the boil pot.

I ended up with 8.25 gallons of 1.035 wort in the keggle.  The boil was delayed by about 2.5 hours as we went to the groundbreaking ceremony for the newly branded Crosstown Concourse.  This was a worthwhile trip as I was able to sample an IPA and a Brown Ale brewed by Crosstown Brewery.  Both were excellent beers!! The wort was boiled for a little over an hour and, with really cold groundwater this time of year, I was able to cool it to 66 degrees in roughly 15 minutes after flameout.  I drained 6 gallons of wort into the fermenter and placed it in my fermentation chamber.  The yeast was pitched once the wort cooled to 52 degrees.  I dropped the fermentation temp to 48 degrees roughly 24 hours after pitching the yeast.  The sample pulled on 2/28/15 had a gravity of 1.014 and tasted really good.  The final gravity should come in around 1.010 so I raised the temp to 63 degrees on Tuesday, 3/3/15, to help the yeast clean up after itself and drive of diacetyl.  I plan on taking another reading tonight and tomorrow then starting the lagering process on Saturday, 3/7/15.  I'll hold the beer at 32 degrees for 2 weeks then raise the temp to 60 degrees and begin the dry hopping process.  My hope is that raising the temp will help the beer hold more of the Cascade aroma from dry hopping as opposed to dry hopping at 32 degrees.  If any of you have suggestions about this, please let me know.  I'll post tasting notes on this beer in a couple of weeks once it's been kegged and carbonated.

Cheers