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Malt extract is itself a substitute for all grain ingredients. Why try and substitute for a substitute? IMO you are better off picking the target beer or style you want and building a grain bill from scratch.

The Sodium and chloride numbers are not high enough to be of concern. Just a guess but the NaCl might be runoff from salted winter roads into a surface water source.

Soft water is good in that because it is very low in mineral and anion content it's fairly simple to add what you need. The main implication for "soft" water is that it is very low in Calcium and Magnesium. Does that generalized 20-22ppm refer to Ca++? Low alkalinity is desired for light...

I have only used flaked versions but you should be able to sub the "quick" versions of those products on a 1:1 ratio by weight and simply mix them into the rest of the grain bill.

Agree with Iseneye. That's way too complicated. A simple brown ale is a beautiful thing. Resist the urge to go American homebrewer on this style. Every beer does not need or benefit from whiskey barrel aging and using every malt on the LHBS shelf. Next time try this: use a nice UK pale...

Your water is not super hard but it is highly alkaline. The pre-boiling suggested will bring that down. After that I would add some Calcium chloride to bring the Ca++ back up to 50-75 ppm and get going on that Munich Dunkel.

Deke, I'm with brewbama. Simplify that grist bill. Less is more here.

Hops are not tropical plants. They come from latitudes well into the 40s in places where the winters can be very cold like a couple of hundred miles either side of the US/Canada border. You can always lay a nice layer of mulch over the beds but you shouldn't have any problems.

You don't need to buy everything all at once. Start with the basics: burner, kettle, MLT, HLT, and a chiller. I second the recommendation of an immersion chiller. While not as fast working as counter-flow or immersion versions they are relatively inexpensive or can be homemade for even lower...

Do you have a wort chiller and fermenting vessels?

It could also be actual soap. Coriander seed has a much different flavor profile than the fresh leaf of the plant. Soap molecules (metallic fatty acids) can be introduced to the beer during long primary fermentation times...

Melanoidins are fairly large molecules and like dextrins aren't metabolized by the body like their simpler components. Perhaps these shared traits are the reason for the mouthfeel description.

I love Spalt hops. You can sub them for any traditional German-style flavor/aroma hop. Kolsch is excellent and probably my favorite with Spalt but pils, Munich Dunkel, Schwarzbier, Helles, Dortmunder, American lagers, Festbier, Bocks, Altbier, and others would all work.

No it will vary. The amount of water will be influenced by the batch size, gravity (the amount of grain used), and boil time among other things. While the water needed for your standard batch size will always be in the same neighborhood a run of high gravity Imperial Stout is going to need more...

You only need tiny amounts of Mg+ in brewing water. How many ppm are you targeting? Single digit ppm is usually enough. If your source water has even 3-4 ppm that plus what is already in the malt should be more than plenty.

Certain carbonates in highly alkaline water will precipitate with boiling, but I don't think it's going to help with your SO4.

Other than filtering out particulates and chlorine he was probably telling you the truth. I know there are micros and certainly brewpubs in my area who do no water adjustment whatsoever. Unfortunately just because somebody owns a brewery or brews professionally you cannot assume that they have...

agree with jswillbrewforbeer on the chocolate wheat and IBUs. I would further simplify the grist bill by eliminating the the light Munich and replacing with more pilsner malt. A half-pound of the Carafa II should be enough at 4% of the grain to get a dark enough color. You really don't have to...

Mill the two pounds of raw wheat and do a cereal mash with a half pound of your pale malt. Then add it to the mash and delete two pounds of the malted wheat. Steeping it will only accomplish leeching out some starch and protein compounds, neither of which you want in the beer. Adding it to...

The Weyermann Vienna is only slightly more highly kilned than the Pilsner malt. It's going to have a bit more toastiness and malt impact but as you can see from the pictures posted it is not really dark in color. Many modern golden colored German Oktoberfest beers are using a Vienna base. A...