[Thomas Scott]

I'm a home brewer who doesn't want to get into mashing. The problem I have is that my extract ales taste flat. I use distilled water and kits. I have begun adding calcium chloride and calcium sulfate to provide approximately 90 ppm Ca, 150 ppm SO4 and 50 ppm Cl assuming it would help. It does but I realized my additions just increase what is already there. Can anyone tell me what water profiles are used by Briess for the DME's they sell? I tried contacting Briess but have had no response.

[BrewnWKopperKat]

A couple of years ago, over in Brewers Friend forums, there was a similar question.  One of the replies has some ppm values.  I won't claim the values are correct, but they were helpful to me. 

https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/threads/briess-malt-extract-water-analyses.15485/

[Thomas Scott]

I found a Briess post from January 2011 that listed 28 ppm Cl and 63 ppm SO4 as adequate values based on wort of 1.064 sp.gr. It did not mention other minerals other than to say their water was moderately hard. It's not much but it's a start.

[Thomas Scott]

I went to the Brewers Friend site you posted and noted that Briess is tight lipped about their mineral contents. However Muntons gave a full report. Looks like I'll be trying to find Muntons malts in the future!

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Last fall I found good prices for Muntons DME at Home Brew Ohio.  Yakima Valley Hops and Label Peelers stock it as well.  I've ordered from Home Brew Ohio & Yakima Valley Hops (but not Label Peelers). 

With regard to mineral content in DME/LME, check out the Bru'nWater 1.25 spreadsheet ("0. Instructions" tab, starting at row 140). 

One of the numerous 'diamonds in the rough' over at HomeBrewTalk is the OP for "I brewed a favorite recipe today": https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/i-brewed-an-experimental-recipe-a-few-weeks-ago.703564/.  OP brews with Muntons, has some nice enhancements to the classic partial boil with late additions approach, and created a bunch of additional discussion around brewing with malt extract.  In that topic, you will find numerous links to related topics.

If you decide to brew with Munton's Amber DME, check out this link:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/i-brewed-an-experimental-recipe-a-few-weeks-ago.703564/page-2#post-10238985

[BrewnWKopperKat]

after a 'deep dive' into extract and minerals, there may be other areas to explore

The problem I have is that my extract ales taste flat.

Can you provide a recipe/notes for a recent brew day that didn't turn out as expected? 

[dmtaylor]

Here's some links to water data I've gathered applicable to Briess:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/extract-porter-questions-briess-dme-mineral-profile.664153/#post-7426204

https://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=154844

EDIT:  And then there's this:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=13520.0

[nvshooter2276]

The problem I have is that my extract ales taste flat. I use distilled water and kits.

That may be your problem. The Germans who wrote the Beer Purity Law around 500 years ago didn't have distilled water. I read thirty years ago to not use distilled water because "there's nothing in it" to give the beer some character. The water in my little town is essentially "liquid gravel" because it's so hard. I filter it through an on-faucet PŪR filter to remove the various negative tastes and the smells of chlorine. Tastes just fine after filtering but is still hard as a rock. I have several gallons of Walmart's Purified Drinking Water, which I assume has some minerals added to give it some taste, unlike distilled water.

Try a brew using Walmart's drinking water. See what you get...

[denny]

The problem I have is that my extract ales taste flat. I use distilled water and kits.

That may be your problem. The Germans who wrote the Beer Purity Law around 500 years ago didn't have distilled water. I read thirty years ago to not use distilled water because "there's nothing in it" to give the beer some character. The water in my little town is essentially "liquid gravel" because it's so hard. I filter it through an on-faucet PŪR filter to remove the various negative tastes and the smells of chlorine. Tastes just fine after filtering but is still hard as a rock. I have several gallons of Walmart's Purified Drinking Water, which I assume has some minerals added to give it some taste, unlike distilled water.

Try a brew using Walmart's drinking water. See what you get...

Distilled water is perfect for extract brews. But not necessarily for all grain unless you treat it. And that was a tax law, not a purity law.

[BrewBama]

It may have been enacted for tax purposes, but Reinheitsgebot literally means “purity command”.

Likewise, our government misnames legislation to gain popularity while it is subversively used for other purposes.

[hopfenundmalz]

The Reinheitsgebot just says water. It says nothing at all about the water quality. Today German brewers trest their water by softening, RO filtration, degassing, and so on. CaCl2 and Gypsum are allowed as water addition.

Ayinger has a 603 meter deep well that has water that tastes wet, you sample it on their tour. It brings up water that comes from high in the Alps.
 

[nvshooter2276]

Ayinger has a 603-meter deep well ... ...

How in helsinki did they dig/drill a well 1978 feet deep 500-some years ago?

[hopfenundmalz]

Ayinger has a 603-meter deep well ... ...

How in helsinki did they dig/drill a well 1978 feet deep 500-some years ago?

Ayinger was founded in 1876. They built the new brewery with the deep well in 1999.

Ayinger not Weihenstephaner.