Castle Black Malt vs Roasted Barley

I've read around a bit on this site and elsewhere about the comparisons between Black Patent and Roasted Barley (unmalted), that Black Patent can be harsh and ashy and that roast is more rounded and complex and less harsh.

Where I live, we make do with what we can get, and Castle's Black Malt has been available here for years, so I've been using that for stouts, including Dry Stout, American Stout and Imperial Stout. I've had very nice results and have been happy with their Black Malt. But, it seems that our local supplier may have gotten in some of their roast and I'm about to brew another iteration of my Imperial Stout, which used 750 grams of Black Malt. To get a similar balance, it seems that maybe I should step up the roast if I switch to that, maybe to 1 kg. Thoughts? What can I expect from the transition? The RIS is a milk stout as well. It finished too dry with WLP001, so added 250 grams of lactose at bottling. Also had Jack Daniels wood along with some Jack added in. Recipe is below.

And this is the Castle Black Malt specs:

http://www.castlemalting.com/Castle...&CropYear=2012&Language=English&FileType=HTML

And their roast:

http://www.castlemalting.com/Castle...&CropYear=2012&Language=English&FileType=HTML

Recipe:

9kg Castle Pale (83%)
.75 kg Castle Black Malt (7%)
.40 kg Crystal 350
.25 kg Chocolate malt
.15 kg Carafa 2

.25 kg lactose at bottling
Jack Daniels wood and Jack.

40 grams Nelson Sauvin @ 75 min.
30 grams Crystal @ 15 min.
20 grams Amarillo @ 15 min.
10 grams Chinook @ 15 min.
25 grams Amarillo @ 0 min.
20 grams Crystal @ 0 min.
10 grams Chinook @ 0 min.

1.105 OG
1.022 FG (too low, as I said, hence the Lactose)
65 ibus
11.1% abv.

The beer is aging very nicely. 2 years old now and just about perfect, for me anyway)

Click to expand...

Wow, that looks like a great recipe. 1 kg sounds about right

Thanks! I'm picking up a few kg tomorrow and will try with around 1 kg of roast. Brewing on Wednesday. Cheers!