just doing some tests, and crunching some numbers for "step one" of my self imposed experiment strategy.
1g of sodium carbonate in 1.0 liter pH 11.4
5g of sodium carbonate in 1.0 liter pH 11.6
10g of sodium carbonate in 1.0 liter pH 11.7
78g of sodium carbonate in 1.0 liter pH 12.3 (saturated solution)
assume 20 g of
tobacco at a moisture content of at average 20%, that's only an extra 0.004 liters of dilution.
conclusion, you don't need much carbonate solution at all, and in fact one would be hard pressed to make a a mixture that did not have enough.
a few drops of solution per gram of
tobacco, to a maximum of 1ml (30 drops) per gram should be sufficient in any case, and it's unlikely to find any increases in efficiency by tweaking this.