Update, IF anyone might be interested (if not, ignore):
As I had indicated above, I have followed through on brewing my American pilsners, but decided to use tap water instead of distilled, to keep the mash pH nice and high, as an experiment. Zero salt additions beyond those present in malt and water. Water report for Two Rivers, WI is available at the bottom of:
https://www.rackers.org/local-water-quality/I guess my experiment "worked" so far -- the alkalinity in my tap water kept the mash pH around 5.9 as I intended. I still got 86% brewhouse efficiency, which was less than the 94% anticipated... but beyond mid-80s, who cares, right?! I got an OG of 1.036 (aimed for 1.040) which I think is alright for an American lite style, should be good drinking this summer, and I split the batch between WLP940 Mexican lager and S-189. The WLP940 is fermenting away in my basement at about 56 F, and the S-189 is upstairs with me here at 68 F (yet another experiment, let's see what this yeast does at room temp).
The wort tasted delicious and was reasonably clear. I don't expect any very unusual characteristics from either of these beers, despite the lack of pH control, high efficiency, or even the high ferm temp from S-189. I can't wait to see what happens with these. Talk about short & shoddy. Oh yeah and mash time was 50 minutes, boil time 75 minutes. About 10-11 IBUs but the hops are old homegrowns from 2017 so I can really only guess. But like I said, wort tasted great.
Experiments like this are so much fun.
![Cheesy :D](http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
If I remember, I'll report more results later.