King Titus Clone Attempt

I have decided to enter my homebrew clubs clone competition, for which I will be attempting to clone King Titus, a robust porter from Maine Beer Company. At some point in early August the club will go over to the brewery, where the pros at Maine Beer will judge how close the clone attempts come to the real thing. The recipe from the brewery is this:

Color – Dark Chocolate
ABV – 7.5%
O.G. – 1.075
Malt – American 2-Row, Caramel 40L, Caramel 80L, Munich 10L, Chocolate, Roasted Wheat, Flaked Oats
Hops – Centennial, Columbus

The LHBS didn't have roast wheat, so I made a substitution, and I wanted to use some of the Warrior hops, so again I made a substitution. Even if it doesn't turn out like the commercial beer, I hope to get a nice chocolatey porter out of it.

King Titus Clone Attempt
6.250# US 2-Row
1# Munich 10L
1# Flaked Oats
8oz US Crystal 40
8oz Chocolate Malt
6oz US Crystal 80
3oz Chocolate Wheat
3oz Roast Barley

Mash at 152F, 75minutes

5/8oz Warrior, 13.7% AA, 60min
1/4oz Columbus, 15.2% AA, 15min
1/4oz Columbus, 15.2% AA, 5min

US-05

 Expected FG/OG/IBUs/ABV: 1.070, 1.017, 46, 6.8%

Brew Day 6/23/13
Prepped a starter from some washed yeast the day before the brewday. By the time I started heating the strike water the starter was slowly fermenting.

Actual mash temp was 152F.

A few minutes before the boil started.

Got 1.8 gallons of first runnings. Got about 4.2 gallons of pre-boil wort. The pre-boil OG was 1.052. If I get the post-boil volume down to 3.12 gal. I should be at the right gravity.

Around 3.2 gallons went into the fermenter. I pitched the decanted starter when the wort was around 70F. The OG was 1.064, a little low. Arg!

6/24/13 By 5:30pm, the beer was actively fermenting while the carboy was sitting in a water bath at 64F.

6/25/13, 6pm. Still bubbling but at a fairly slow pace. Ambient temps remain at 64F.

7/11/13. Bottled, aiming for 2.2 volumes of CO2. Got 34 x 12oz bottles. Did not have enough left in the bottling bucket to take a hydrometer sample.