I'm pretty sure its possible but don't really know how feasible it is, but.. Let's say I raise the ph of water by using soda carb to 12ish. Would I only have to add a small amount of lye to push it to 13-14? I'm asking because I like my stb tek. Its simple, quick, clean, and I've perfected it, but I would like to reduce the amount of lye I use so I thought I might be able to do that by starting off with a higher ph solution.

if you want to get ph 14 without lye, just use calcium hydroxide.

How many g/ml do you need with sodium carbonate to get it to 12.5? Would any precip and cause a mess?

he said stb so i am assuming its dry.

I also don't know where calcium hydroxide is available. I know calcium hydroxide is used in commercial settings to make certain molecules colloidal, which made me wonder if id have a large number of floaties in my jars if I used that. Lol.

"Put a lime lime the pickle jar n' shake it all up."

Er hmmm, pickling lime. It can be found wherever canning supplies are sold.

When I was hunting for pickling lime a while back, I didn't have any luck at my local grocery stores that sell canning supplies, but I did finally find a massive bag of the stuff for like $1.50 at a little Mexican grocery store. At those little Mexican markets it would most likely be labeled "cal", if it doesn't say "lime" on the bag,