Hey guys, doing an A/B with phosphoric acid. Seems really hard to get the PH high enough when basifying with lye. When I used vinegar it was easy but obviously phosphoric is much stronger.

I keep adding more and more lye but it seems stuck at PH10. So far added 300g into about a litre of acidified solution on a 200g MHRB extraction.

I guess I just keep adding till it gets high enough?

Use less acid next time?

Maybe the solution is saturated and you need to add more water as neutral pH's raise aicidic solutions and then the pH can raise from there?

Is your pH meter suitable at measuring pH values above 10? How did you calibrate your pH meter?

The amount of lye you used per litre should give you a pH well above 14, closer to 15 btw

I'm using ph paper.

Maybe I'm reading the paper wrong. It actually doesn't look like any of the colours on the chart, it looks kinda black but the closest colour is the dark navy of ph10.

But how can you use a color-sensitive pH meter with a normally pitch-black mimosa soup? Which brings to the point - if your mimosa soup gets pitch black with base addition, then it has been basified enough. No need for pH measurements.

Now please do not add more lye as you already have an ultra-caustic and unsettlingly corrosive liquid. I hope that you at least keep it in a borosilicate glass (laboratory glass) container.

Its not pitch black. It looks black but when I shine a light on it its very dark brown. Should it be totally pitch black?

Yeah I won't add any more lye, just gonna leave it as it is and pull.

An electric ph meter is in order in future

Well, from color description alone (forgetingand putting aside the tonnes of lye added!) yours sounds like already basified nicely; and yes, you can (especially in A/B where there are no floating particles to make it pitch black as it happens in STB) shine a light through to see a lighter shade.

Great. Thanks for the advice Infundibulum