Hoping my English IPA works out

Well, I made a nice English IPA last year using an all grain recipe from Yooper and having it converted to all extract. I wanted to make it again with a few changes. Here was what I did last year:

So I took Yooper's English IPA recipe:
10 pounds maris otter
1 pound torrified wheat
1 pound victory malt
8 ounces crystal 80L

1 ounce EKG 60 minutes
1 ounce EKG 30 minutes
1 ounce EKG 15 minutes
1 ounce EKG 5 minutes

London ESB yeast Wyeast 1968 (big starter)

OG 1.050
FG 1.012 (was shooting more for 1.016)


and converted it to an extract recipe as follows:

6 lbs Coopers Light LME
12 oz torrified wheat
12 oz victory malt
4oz crystal 150L
4 oz Crystal 60L

White labs London Ale yeast(WLP 013)

Same hops schedule, plus 1 tsp of irish moss at 15 min. Steeping at 150 F for 30 min.
Adding one can of LME (3lbs) at first, then the second can at 15 min left of boil.

Then 14 days in primary, no secondary.

Well, I was going to follow this again but try WLP 005 yeast which was recommended here, plus 1 oz of Fuggles as a dry hop, plus some 5.2 buffer to adjust my water to get full effect of the hops.

This all went downhill when I went to my LBS. I have noticed that they have gone downhill over time as they closed one out of two locations, have less knowledgable staff and a much smaller inventory. So after a 45 minute drive each way I ended up with a bastardized version of my recipe, and am now two degrees of separation from Yooper's original. Would someone please review and let me know if this will get me close to my original?

6.6 lbs of Briess CBW golden light malt (he said it was the same as Coopers)
12 oz torrified wheat
12 oz victory malt (he said he didn't have it, but I found it under a pile of other grains. Good thing because he couldn't think of a substitute)
8oz crystal 150L (he didn't have 60L and said I'd never know the difference)

He only had 1 oz of EKG, no Fuggles. So I took the 1 oz of EKG, and then 4oz of UK First Gold. I'll use 1 oz of the UK Gold to dry hop.

He never heard of 5.2 buffer, but said I didn't need it. An interesting conclusion.

He didn't have Yooper's yeast selection or any of the White labs yeasts. He went to the dry yeasts and said any of these yeasts would work fine. I asked if saf-05 would give a different result compared to the other numbers or types. He said they all basically work the same which I know is BS. I gave up at this point and ended up taking something called :
Lallemand Windsor because it said it was a British-style beer yeast.

The amazing thing is this guy works there, I am an amateur who only knows from 5-6 brewings and what I learned here, and I got the sense that I knew more than him. He had no problem charging full price though as the recipe cost me over $50, which is more than in the past. I figure that my next purchase will need to be from an online supply as the shipping would equal the cost of gas anyway.

Thanks for any insight.

The batch will be different then what you did last go around, but it sounds like a solid receipe. 5.2 is a ph stabilizer used to bring the ph of tap water down to 5.2 which is the sweet spot for mashing. I have never heard of using 5.2 to get better utilization of your hops. Hope your batch turns out. Cheers