In order to effectively end the blockade it would not have been enough to just sink the ships patrolling between Norway and the UK. Trade would only have been possible if Germany somehow could secure shipping in the North Sea and Atlantic. Not only was the British Navy superior in numbers, the location of the British Isles was a huge advantage, and the Germans had no bases elsewhere. On top of that, the High Seas Fleet was not designed to cruise around the ocean, it was built to challenge the Royal Navy close to the German coast. It just didn't have the range to do this.

Lastly the Battle Fleet was a highly prestigious object, very expensive and subject to national pride. Nobody wanted to risk losing it. Using U-boats offered a viable alternative and so they went with it.

To the extent the Germans had a plan, it was to attempt to take advantage of any situation that would allow the British Grand Fleet to be taken on piecemeal. The British separated a Battlecruiser squadron under Beatty for much of the war, in order to protect the British coastline. Meanwhile, most of the Fleet harboured at Scapa Flow from which it could prevent the German High Seas Fleet from breaking out into the Atlantic.

Although there were several attempts to execute this plan, only at Jutland did it lead to a serious battle and although the British lost more ships, the High Seas Fleet was extremely fortunate to disengage without being destroyed.

Part of the problem was the lack of understanding of what and how to bring battle about, and what would occur. Gun ranges, ship speed, armour and so on had increased by orders of magnitude in a short time. Communication, especially once battle was joined and smoke made visual signalling difficult, was limited. Exercising active tactical command for a fleet commander was almost impossible. And ships were massively expensive.

These factors tended to make commanders conservative, and certainly made executing any 'plan' very difficult. Initiating a naval battle really meant an 'all or nothing' gamble: once out of port, the Imperial Fleet could not count on returning unless it comprehensively won any encounter... with an enemy fleet superior in capability and numbers. Failure almost inevitably meant the loss of the entire fleet. And although Germany as a whole could continue to fight the war with minimal naval power, no Navy commander was going to risk such an outcome. The Kaiser had a soft spot for his lovingly-built-up navy and was not likely to push the matter.

For the German Navy, there were other factors. They had a poor social-command structure, whereby flag officers had greater status than technical officers, and the seamen were lowest of all. While the British had a national class system and naval traditions that permitted the common tar to accept his position, the Imperial German Navy was much less harmonious. The fact that many civilians and politicians saw the Navy as sitting out the war, while the Army lost millions, made this worse.

By 1917, the Imperial Navy was in a state of tolerated semi-mutiny. The common sailor was under no illusion that a sortie was basically a gamble that would result in mass death (at this time, any ship lost in battle took almost all its crew with it), and if ordered to sea, it is unlikely the sailors would even have gone.

After Jutland, there was a general reappraisal of Germany's options and commanders looked to the submarine as a means of staging a counter-blockade.

Ronald Spector's At War At Sea is a good book on 20th Century naval warfare and culture in general. There are many good books on Jutland, I read and enjoyed that by Jon Sutherland and Diane Canwell.