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PH checking

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Copenhagen Forever

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I've got a aquarium PH checking kit. I've tried twice to come to a conclusion but I still don't know how much the color of the tobacco is influencing what I see. The test comes out brown green/ blue. More on the green side. Is anyone checking there snus PH.
DSC05732.jpg water up to the line. 1/8th of a tsp loose snus shaken.
DSC05734.jpgDSC05735.jpg3 drops of the tester shaken.
DSC05737.jpgstarting with the blue; 7.6 7.2 7.0 6.8 6.6 6.4 6.0
DSC05738.JPGDSC05739.JPGDSC05741.JPG Another test from scratch. 3 drops unshaken. moved flashlight around to get a better view of the color.

What would you think of this test?
 

ChinaVoodoo

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I would try a soil test kit instead. The instructions would probably work better with snus as they are designed to work with solid matter in the liquid. They have two compartments for liquid. One has the chemical added while the other doesn't, and the color scale is translucent, and superimposed over the other compartment, which has the water/soil mix without the added chemical.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?cat=2,42578&p=65366
Edit: this test kit looks like it only has the translucent color scale for the npk, maybe there's another brand which does it for pH as well.
 

deluxestogie

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I agree about using a pH meter for tobacco, which--unlike soil--actually colors the liquid with oxidized nicotine. The cheap pH meters aren't all that accurate, but I believe they're close enough. The advantage is that a meter does not rely on colorimetry. Colorimetric methods (pool test kits, soil test kits, hydrion paper, phenolphthalein titration, etc.) critically depend on the absence of a masking color in the tested solution.

It's certainly possible to create a set of serial dilutions (1, 10:1, 100:1, 1000:1) of your test material, then fiddle with titration using a known base (NaOH). Each pH whole "number" differs from the next lower or higher pH whole "number" by a factor of 10 (in the concentration of H+). But the titration math gets somewhat messy.

So, a pH meter seems like a more reliable approach.

Bob
 

Copenhagen Forever

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Thanks for the info guy. I guess the meters the way to go. The soil test and the meter are about the same price. The calibration solution is about $6. They are cheap enough but I'll have to wait on that. I got something big coming. See how I sit after. I'll haul this thread up again when it get the meter.
 

CatpainBlack

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If you ever have to do a color based assay of pH you definitely must have a clear liquid without any coloration. You should also consider, that you can't really measure the pH of a solid, such as the tobacco powder, you can only measure the pH of a solution - so you must prepare a solution and thus, you must keep in mind how you prepared a solution from you tobacco and don't be afraid of filtering your solution, this will only aid in measurement. Different preparations may give you varying results, but if you repeatedly do it the same way, you could get yourself a nice reference table of your pH measurement results and compare it to at least some of your baccas characteristics.
 

Smokin Harley

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distilled water over the medium you are testing to the test line on your test tube provided . with a finger to seal the top, shake and let sit a little and then strain the liquid out through a coffee filter. test the filtered liquid .
 
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