How to measure pH value in tobacco?

[whotan]

Beautiful good day.
I wanted to ask if you have any idea how to measure the pH value of smokeless tobacco?

I have test strips at home! However, I would have to dissolve the tobacco in a little water or squeeze the tobacco to measure it! And would that be accurate? I don't think so! Because I would have to dilute the liquid or the tobacco! How do you go about measuring the pH value of tobacco?

 

[Skafidr]

I bought pH test strips for soil and the instructions were essentially: take half a cup of soil into a container, mix in half a cup of distilled water, mix, let it sit for eight hours, stir it again, filter this in a paper coffee filter, then do your test in the filtered liquid.

Those strips were designed for soil.

So if you don't get better instructions from folks here, personally, I'd take a leaf, shred it into pieces, mix it in a container with distilled water and crush the leaf pieces in the water using some kind of pestle. Then after eight hours, do the test using the tobacco infused water.

 

[deluxestogie]

A soil pH meter would likely work. Example:

Soil PH Meter HG602 - The Home Depot

Meter for measuring soil pH. Ideal for all soil testing. Great quality product.

www.homedepot.com

Bob

 

[Skafidr]

A soil pH meter would likely work.

I'm a bit on the fence with this kind of device, some of them have good reviews on Amazon, some reviewers say it didn't work for the pH, and someone says on the page you linked that there is no way such a device can possibly work; I'm not good enough with chemistry/electricity to decide if "this can't possibly work" is true or false. Another aspect of this is that 1) the ones with the needle/dial seems to be a bit imprecise while the ones with the LCD need batteries and I don't like much running after bunch of batteries, or leave them in the device and risk them to leak there.

But that's just me

The soil test strips I used are kind of hard to use because you have to compare colours and they don't give you a direct, hard answer to the question "what is the pH of my soil. You kind of have to decide the pH with a gut feeling.

 

[Skafidr]

@whotan Did the strips come with instructions?

 

[deluxestogie]

The meters depend on soil moisture to function, so there is plenty of room for imprecise results. The test strips depend on colorimetry, which can easily be thrown off by solutions that are not colorless, for example, by a tobacco suspension, even after filtering. Swimming pool pH test kits assume a colorless liquid. Laboratories routinely use carefully controlled titration methods, i.e. expensive and require technical knowledge and assorted lab apparatus.

Bob

 

[Skafidr]

by a tobacco suspension

Good point, I did not think about this.

even after filtering

I wondered if the paper filter would change the pH of the solution when filtering it.

So it appears that measuring the pH of something at home is more an estimation than an actual hard value! (Unless that thing is colourless.)

 

[deluxestogie]

I wondered if the paper filter would change the pH of the solution when filtering it.

Just check the pH of some tap water before and after filtering. I'm sure that each type of filter paper (other than laboratory filter paper) may have some quirks.

My personal opinion is that, other than for sending a soil test out to a state lab, measuring pH at home is the equivalent of wanting to measure the sodium ion concentration in a pot of rice.

Bob

 

[Huffen'Snuff]

I got an actual PHtest meter, one you can calibrate with the pH buffers included.

The snuff foru6ms advice you to use one part snuff : ten parts distilled water by weight, to make the suspension. Follow exact directions included with pH test pen, afterwards I wash the end of pH meter very well with tap water, then I immediately wash off ta6p water using distilled water. Maintenance is key to keep electrodes free of residue, when the surface of electrodes changes resistance and looses electrical conductivity it changes the ph, and the measurements wonder.
I have been told not to worry about the suspension being muddy, and contacting electrodes.
I have read that labs take a measurement at 15minutes 30 minutes and I hour, then average all three measurements, but the snuff millers I talk to only take the one reading.

 

[PressuredLeaf]

Thanks in part to the popularity of hydroponics, you can now get pretty darn good electric pH meters off Amazon for <$50.

As others have mentioned they can be used to measure tobacco pH, soil pH, etc. if you follow good protocols and don’t damage the glass reference electrode.

As Hufen’Snuff mentioned, calibration is very important! All pH probes tend to drift a lot over time, even the crazy expensive industrial and analytical lab probes. The good news is standard buffer solutions are available online as well.