Black Malt - is it what you think?

I haven't encountered any astringency or sharp acrid flavours in my dry Irish stouts. I try to keep beers I may enter into a comp as close to BJCP guidelines as possible. As samale mentioned I add all my roasted unfermentable grains at mash out. The reason why, is to get the best out of the base malt. I target my pH at 5.3 in the middle of the 5.2 to 5.4 this is going to give me the body I want.
My water is very soft the mash pH just from the buffering of the base malts will take the pH down to about 5.6 so I only have to add a small amount of salts and a little phosphoric acid to get me in the ball park.
I think it is more of an Irish method, as O'Hara's, Guinness, and I believe Beamish steep their grains. Bottle conditioning will give a similar finish to a nitro pour if the carbonation is right. I have never been out of the top two with my Dry Irish Stout. This has sour beer added to give an extra complexity as Guinness used to do. Now they just add lactic acid.
Writing about stout makes me feel like having one.

Good head fine bubbles. The IBU for this one is 58.1 Tinseth and 6.1 ABV


Good lacing and head dissipating towards the end. Is there a better beer?

Mouthfeel​

Medium-light to medium-full body, with a somewhat creamy character (particularly when served with a nitro pour). Low to moderate carbonation. For the high hop bitterness and significant proportion of dark grains present, this beer is remarkably smooth. May have a light astringency from the roasted grains, although harshness is undesirable.

I have always just mashed everything together - but with hard water it all helps. You can't always tell if a method is fine or maybe I am just not sensitive to the taste.

Interesting thing I learnt from the Brewing Elements series Malt book is that if the maltster takes black too far it loses taste and colour.

A good experimental beer would be just pale ale malt and black?

Caramel Ox said:

I have always just mashed everything together - but with hard water it all helps. You can't always tell if a method is fine or maybe I am just not sensitive to the taste.

Interesting thing I learnt from the Brewing Elements series Malt book is that if the maltster takes black too far it loses taste and colour.

A good experimental beer would be just pale ale malt and black?

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I used to mash the whole grain bill together. Then played around with cold steeping but by far the easiest way is to add when the mash of the base malt is complete. Worked for me but each to his/her own.