So I am new to this home brewing thing and would like to ask some opinions. I brewed my first extract batch March 3rd and it's in the secondary now, and will be bottling on Monday March 22nd. That one was a Cream Ale from a kit. Since finding this site I have decided to try it from scratch using extract for now. My next batch is going to be an Amber Ale. Here is what I was thinking.

3lb Amber DME
3.3lb Amber LME
1lb Crystal 20L steeped 30min
2lb Honey

1oz Mount Hood 60min
.5oz Cascade 15min

ABV 6.5%

Any thoughts or concerns with this recipe? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

you won't get a lot of flavor from the honey, if your just bumping up the ABV I suggest sugar or corn syrup solids or rice extract. I would back off on the Crystal a bit, your going to get sweetness from the extract and I think a half a pound of crystal will be just right. The honey will dry it out as would sugar. otherwise looks fine

That's a lot of honey. Remeber, it's mostly fermentable so it's going to dry out your beer, not sweeten it.

As long as you're cool with that, it seems fine.

I've always gone with pale extract, even when making a stout, and then using the right specialty grains to get the proper color and flavor.

good call Bryan, when extract brewing I always used the lightest extract I could find. I also cuts down on the unfermentables

If I change to a light dry extract, any suggestions on a good grain to steep to get the color a little darker, and add some flavor?

Even extra light pale male comes out some what dark, but I would say a little crystal 40 or 60 would do the trick. There are other malts out there other than crystal malts that you can use like Special B, Cara red, Cara Vienna, really any cara malt is already modified so you can steep them. But because your just starting out try using the different crystal malts one at a time untill you get a feel for their contribution, then move on.

I completely agree with using the lightest DME out there and then going with the speciality grains. I brewed that way for a long time. Also, I know you're only thinking about this recipe right now, but you might want to buy the book 'Designing Great Beers' by Ray Daniels. It'll help you formulate recipes and it's a book you can continue to use if you go all-grain down the road. The only downside is that the analysis of the recipes is a bit dated at this point.